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WHAT GL»^RD^SO ME  LOOKS  OF  HOUSEHOLD  LOVE 
MEET  JN   THE   jRUOOY   ;L1«HT 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT 
of 

Prof.   Elliot  A. P.  Evans 


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THE 

H  EARTH  STON  E ; 

OR, 

Life  at  Home. 

CONTAINING 

hints  and   hklps   for   home  making;    home   furnishing;    decorations 
amusements;  health  directions;  the  sick-room;  the  nursery 

THE   library;   the   LAUNDRY;    ETC. 
TOGETHER  WITH 

A  COMPLETE  COOKERY  BOOK, 

BY 

LAURA   C.   HOLLOW  AY, 

Author  of  "Ladiu  0/  Ifu  WhiU  House,"  tte. 


THE    INTER-STATE 

PUBLISHING     HOUSE, 

BELOIT,    WIS. 

1883. 


Copyrighi  by  Laura  C.  Holloway,  1883. 


t-IO 


^^^^■] 


PREFACE. 


ERE  I  to  dedicate  this  book,  it  would  be  to 
the  Homesick :  that  class,  which,  above  all 
others  on  earth,  has  suffered  so  hopelessly, 
been  so  little  understood  by  those  who 
have  escaped  this  mind  disease.  How  it 
eats  out  the  hopes  and  aspirations  and 
longings  of  its  victims,  and  leaves  them 
bound  to  the  Promethean  rock  of  loneli- 
ness, only  those  know  who  are  its  victims. 

Were  I  to  dedicate  my  book  to  the  homesick,  it  would  be 
consecrated  to  thousands  upon  thousands  of  little  children, 
who  among-  strangers  pine  to  be  at  home,  to  whom  the 
school  is  the  prison-house,  the  distant  home  the  heaven 
they  long  to  reach;  to  the  lonely  orphans  found  in  insti- 
tutions where  the  charity  of  strangers  gives  them  food  and 
raiment,  but  not  a  mother's  love,  a  father's  presence  or  a 
home's  liberty ;  to  the  over-worked  men  and  women,  wlio 
are  exiles  to  home  blessings  through  poverty ;  to  the  aged 
ones  who  have  outlived  their  kindred,  and  have  no  abiding 
place  at  any  hearthstone ;  to  the  greater  j^art  of  all  God's 

creatures,  in  fact,  for  few,  indeed,  are  so  happy  as  to  have 

(iii) 


91 


IV  PREFACE, 

lived,  and  not  suffered  from  this  cause.  All  its  cruel  phases 
and  manifestations,  its  blighting  power  and  tenacious  grasp, 
were  realized  by  Payne,  who  spoke  for  the  homesick  when  he 
penned  his  "Home,  Sweet  Home."  He  touched  the  univer- 
sal heart  with  his  poem  made  immortal  in  song,  and  it  seems 
fitting  that  in  a  book  on  the  subject,  nothing  could  be  more 
appropriate  than  a  picture  of  the  fireside  where  he  lived  as 
a  little  child.  This  the  beautiful  frontispiece  gives,  and  in 
gazing  upon  it  may  be  realized  the  charm  that  hallowed  the 
name  to  him.  In  the  words  of  the  song  that  has  made  his  name 
dear  to  his  kind,  he  did  not  teach,  he  but  voiced  the  univer- 
sal sentiment ;  the  love  that  comprehends  that  of  mother, 
father,  sister,  brother,  of  prosperity  and  contentment. 

Surely  a  word  so  potent  has  a  deeper  significance  than 
any  other  in  our  language.  To  have  a  home  in  the  fullest 
sense  is  to  be  blessed ;  to,  be  in  heaven  while  yet  on  earth. 
From  out  of  happy  homes  come  all  the  true  men  and  women 
the  world  possesses.  The  noblest  and  best  of  the  race 
have  been  and  can  only  be  the  products  of  happy  homes. 
The  fetters  that  bind  us  to  home  are  the  cords  that  connect 
us  with  all  true  progress  and  right  development.  The  hap- 
piness of  a  well-organized  home  is  reflected  in  the  lives  of 
all  men  and  women  who  come  in  contact  with  its  inmates. 
We  cannot,  do  not  live  unto  ourselves  alone  :  the  world  is  the 
better  or  otherwise  for  our  being  in  it.  Home  is  the  cen- 
tral point  of  all  happiness ;  the  pivot  upon  which  depends 
the  weal  or  the  woe  of  families  and  communities.  What 
then  so  important  as  the  right  building  of  our  earthly  homes 
in  all  spiritual  and  practical  ways  ?  What  subject  so  fraught 
with  great  consequences  as  the  Hearthstone? 

Verily,  if  we  have  ideals,  let  them  be  in  this  direction;  and 


PREFACE. 


let  them  be  so  developed  that  when  we  have  passed  from  the 
earthly  home,  it  may  be  to  find  the  spiritual  one  a  facsimile 
of  that  which  we  have  wrought  in  fancy  here,  and  loved  and 
lonofed  to  attain  ;  a  veritable  Hearthstone,  about  which  will 
be  gathered  the  friends  of  old,  the  memories  of  the  past, 
the  essence  of  every  aspiration  and  anticipation. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


hearthstone, 
baby's  welcome, 
playing  tennis,    . 

ARCHERY,    .... 

game  of  croquet, 

game  of  chess, 

floral  window,   . 

grandfather's  home, 

mother's  knee,     . 

house  design,  no.  I, 

house  design,  no.  2, 

house  design,  no.  3, 

house  design,  no.  4, 

house  design,  no.  5, 

church  and  parsonage,  no.  6, 

plan  of  design,  no.  i, 

plan  of  design,  no.  2,  . 


Frontispiece. 

58 

.  90 

91 

.  94 

116 

.  264 

326 

.  350 


J 


from  376  to  389 


390 
.  392 


(vii) 


CONTENTS. 


HOMES,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN. 

PACE 

The  idea  of  home  and  how  associated — The  original  idea  of  the  ancients — David  and 
his  palace — A  habitation  in  Israel — Its  minarets  and  towers  homes  for  the  birds 
— Row}and  Taylor's  remark — "  Lead,  kindly  Light " — Loneliness  of  the  homeless 
— "  The  night  is  dark,  and  I  am  far  from  home  " — Howard  Payne's  world-famous 
song — The  secret  of  its  popularity — The  melody  of  every  human  heart — The 
prodigal  son — Like  Joseph  in  his  inquiries — The  voice  of  the  good  angel — To 
the  "diggings"  in  Australia — Charles  Lamb's  sonnet — Some  old  proverbs — The 
test  of  duty — The  dying  soldier — Humble  earnings — "  The  old  folks  at  home  " 
A  Pauline  phrase — Cross-grained  creatures — A  touch  of  nature — Two  kinds  of 
sons — The  brand  of  Cain — The  effect  of  home-training — William  Wilberforce's 
sons — A  right  ambition — Alien  proprietorship — A  condition  of  things  not  lasting 
— German  and  English  peoples — Home  and  its  central  fires — Two  kinds  of  citi- 
zenship— The  sacred  heritage  of  family  life — An  old  English  proverb — Man's  and 
woman's  part  in  home-building — The  destruction  of  a  perfect  ideal — Oscar  Wilde — 
The  old  log-fire — Musings  of  memory — The  days  of  unleavened  bread — Pictures 
in  the  fire — The  lid  of  a  tin  kettle — James  Watts'  inspiration — "  On  the  past  they 
stream  " — The  altar-hearth  of  home 25 

HOME-MAKING  AND  HOME-MANAGEMENT. 

"  Those  lights  of  home  " — The  Mecca  of  the  heart — A  German  Legend — An  inspiring 
task — The  weal  or  woe  of  the  house — The  true  basis  of  home-life — A  one  need- 
ful presence — For  the  children's  sake — A  humiliating  admission — The  pleasant- 
est  place  in  the  house — An  eyesore  anywhere — Dining-room  walls — A  bright 
background — What  the  best  authorities  favor — Dining-room  furnishings — The 
place  for  a  mirror — Small  articles  and  pictures — Silver  wire  versus  woollen  cord 
— Desirable  ornaments — BufTct  and  silver — A  lack  that  is  felt — Knick-knacks — 
Chairs — Why  children  are  ill-mannered — The  advantages  of  a  sitting-room— 

(ix) 


X  CONTENTS. 

One  lady's  habit — Drawing-rooms  and  parlors — How  to  furnish  a  sitting-room 
— The  "little  things" — Elevation  of  domestic  service — Overtaxed  women — A 
grave  error — What  parlor  carpets  do — Strong  charges — "  Too  good  to  be  used" 
— Master  of  the  house — Shaker  independence — Not  slaves  to  inanimate  things — 
At  what  they  marvel — Their  religious  principle — The  origin  of  carpets — For  what 
first  used — "  If" — Woman  should  be  consulted — Good  floors — Old  time  flower- 
bed designs — Cheap  carpets — How  corners  are  kept  clean — The  enemy  of  weak 
lungs — How  to  sweep  a  carpet — A  radical  doctrine — The  adornment  of  win- 
dows— Objections  to  certain  kinds  of  draperies — The  secret  of  success  with  cur- 
tains— Flowers  in  the  window — An  objection  to  window  gardens — Ferneries — 
A  window  conservatory — How  made — A  necessity  of  all  windows — A  beautiful 
transparency — True  method  of  cleaning  windows — Wire-screens — The  mistake 
of  house  furnishers — Costly  things  not  always  the  most  desirable — The  error  of 
choosing  hastily — What  to  buy — Mantle  decorations — The  folly  of  overcrowd- 
ing— In  regard  to  books — The  borrowing  visitor — A  folding  screen — Old 
furniture  re-covered — Preferred  materials — A  mantle-piece  border — Fire-place 
screen — Some  uses  of  silesia — Time  wasted — Work-basket  curiosities — A  dis- 
couraging sight — An  evil  genius  in  the  home — Temperance  in  sewing — The 
pleasure  of  work — What  is  weaved  into  its  warp  and  woof — The  veneering 
style  in  sewing — A  much  abused  trade — Art  needle-work 36 

THE  BABY  IN  THE  HOME. 

Reflections  of  the  father — His  misgivings — A  familiar  domestic  scene — The  mother's 
meditations — A  miniature  of  all  biography — Entertaining  an  angel  unawares — 
"Why" — Precocious  and  gifted  children — Where  parents  live  again — A  curious 
incident — Multitudinous  reflections — Thomas  Starr  King's  death-bed — A  spirit- 
ualistic theory — "  The  patterns  of  things  in  heaven  " — Parents  who  transmitted 
their  life-work — Darwin  and  Herbert  Spencer  as  intellectual  heirs — Parental 
responsibility — "A  mere  child" — A  study  of  a  baby — Samuel  Johnson's  advice 
— The  parents,  hand — Hartley  Coleridge's  childhood — His  brother's  account  of 
it — Henry  Crabb  Robinson's  diary — Precocity  of  Coleridge — Odes  to  him  by  his 
father,  and  by  Wordsworth — His  character  and  fate — A  strange  combination  of 
qualities — The  slave  of  the  opium  habit — The  inheritor  of  his  father's  sins — An 
opium-eating  father — A  dram-drinking  son — The  fatal  transmission  of  appetites 
— A  bright  career  blighted — Expelled  from  England's  oldest  university — A 
hopeless  drunkard — A  lesson  to  fathers — The  unwritten  page  of  a  child's  life — 
A  mistaken  idea — Pharaoh's  daughter — The  child  not  to  vegetate,  but  to  live — 
An  old  proveib  should  be  verified — Home  influences — The  government  of  temper 
— The  baby  at  the  home-school — Itself  a  teacher — Its  chief  lessons — The 
fatber's  second  birth — The  quickness  of  children's  mental  and  moral  perceptions 


CONTENTS.  xi 

^The  language  of  heaven — What  science  teaches — The  heart  language  of  the 
baby  in  the  home 57 


"  UP-STAIRS,  DOWN-STAIRS,  IN  MY  LADY'S  CHAMBER." 

The  servant  question — A  universal  cry — Conversations  heard  in  homes — Characters 
given  to  servants — "  Goodness  !  How  dreadful ! " — The  consternation  of  a  house- 
maid— The  fate  of  a  blue  velvet  mantilla — Reminiscences  of  Matilda  Pancake  and 
Lucretia  Muffins — The  thieving  cook — The  other  side — Servants'  grievances — 
The  proper  example  wanted — One's  self-respect  and  that  of  others — Faithful 
servants  the  world's  salvation — The  doing  of  honest  work — The  ideas  that  for- 
eign domestics  bring  with  them — The  faithful  old  servant — Joseph  a  typical 
server — If  "  things  are  not  what  they  seem  " — The  nervous  effects  of  an  untidy 
servant — Dethronement  of  reason — Peculiarities  of  servants — "Yes,  m'm" — 
Left  as  well  as  right  hands — Horrible  moments — The  habit  of  humming — What 
causes  animosity — Times  that  try  mistresses'  souls — An  old  Scotch  proverb — 
"  Some  servants  " — The  good  servant  a  master-piece  of  Christian  civilization — Her 
position  next  that  of  teacher — Biographies  of  old  servants — Training-schools — 
"Butter-fingered  girls" — A  forgetful  cook  and  how  cured — The  hand  of  the 
servant,  and  what  it  does  with  the  machinery  of  home 73 

SPORTS  AND  GAMES  FOR  LADIES. 

Sports  and  games  in  the  ynited  States — Out-door  exercises  for  women — An  increas- 
ing demand  for  them — The  list  of  out-door  sports — Descriptions  of  each.  Lawn 
Tennis,  and  how  played — Essentially  a  field-sport  for  ladies — The  best  for 
enjoyable  out-door  exercise — Playing  tennis.  Archery — Recreations  of  the 
archery  field — How  to  learn  it — Exercise  that  develops  the  chest  muscles — 
Shooting  at  a  target — The  trials  of  a  novice — How  to  take  aim — Rules  for 
holding  the  bow  and  arrow.  Croquet — A  tell-tale  game — Test  of  fine  manners — 
Croquet  unlike  other  games — Not  played  according  to  set  rules — Why  the  game 
lost  popularity — The  place  where  croquet  is  played  best — Experts  at  play — A 
great  courting  and  flirting  game — The  points  of  difference  in  the  game — A  pecu- 
liarity of  croquet— Three  ways  of  arranging  croquet  hoops — Diagrams — Dimen- 
sions of  grounds — Terms  used  in  croquet.  Calisthenics — An  exercise  necessary 
for  girls — The  objection  to  the  majority  of  games — A.  special  benefit  derived 
from  systematic  exercise — Calisthenics  not  necessary  for  one  class  of  girls — The 
costume  for  calisthenics.  Skating — The  most  graceful  of  sports — The  sociabil- 
ity of  a  popular  skating  lake — Advantages  to  health — Why  girls  should  skate — 
The  essentials  for  the  full  enjoyment  of  skating — Confidence  essential  in  skating 
— The  first  lesson — The  sensation  of  standing  on  an  edge — To  balance  one's 


XU  CONTENTS. 

self — The  fundamental  basis  of  all  efforts  on  skates — The  fear  that  causes  a  fall  ' 
— Lean  on  the  outer  edge — Fancy  skating — A  pretty  sight — Skating  on  rollers — 
The  difference  in  the  two  methods — What  can  be  done  on  roller  skates.  Walk- 
ing— A  neglected  exercise — How  to  become  a  good  walker — The  difference 
between  city  promenading  and  walking — The  kind  of  shoes  to  wear — "A  ten- 
mile  morning  constitutional  " — Ladies'  walking  parties — What  women  are  capa- 
ble of  in  the  way  of  walking — English  country  ladies — Locomotion  of  the  city 
belle — Something  to  be  ashamed  of — Certain  sanitary  rules  about  walking. 
Billiards — A  game  at  first  popular  with  the  nobility — An  attractive  in-door  game 
— To  learn  to  play  billiards — How  to  manipulate  the  balls  with  the  cue — A 
natural  aptitude  not  always  possessed  for  the  game — The  mechanical  movements 
to  be  learned — The  quickest  way  to  learn  the  game.  Bathing  and  Swimming 
— The  art  of  swimming  a  valuable  essential  to  good  health — Increasing  popularity 
of  swimming — Rules  for  healthy  sea-bathing — When  to  bathe — When  not  to  do 
so — When  to  leave  the  water — Cramps — How  to  swim — Presence  of  mind  the 
chief  requisite — How  animals  swim — The  Indians  natural  swimmers — "  Why  " 
— When  the  art  is  an  impossible  one  to  attain — The  motion  of  the  limbs  in 
swimming — How  to  act  under  a  painful  circumstance — The  editor  of  London 
Truth — The  philosophy  of  breathing  the  true  secret  of  learning  to  swim.  Row- 
ing— The  chances  of  accidents — No  girl  should  go  out  alone  unless  a  swimmer 
— The  action  of  dipping,  pulling,  lifting  and  pushing  the  oar — Make  haste  slowly 
— Feathering  the  oar — The  muscles  of  the  wrist.  Chess — A  scientific  in-door 
recreation — An  easy  game  to  learn — A  mental  rest,  not  a  mathematical  study — 
Books  of  instructions — Tlaeir  characteristics — Nerve  and  strategic  skill  required, 
not  book  knowledge — Chess  analysis — Hints  to  beginiiers — ^^Directions 87" 


THE  LIBRARY  IN  THE  HOME. 

The  completeness  of  home-life — The  thing  wanting  in  homes — St.  Paul  an  intellectual 
architect — A  heathen  philosopher's  amazement — Unfinished  characters — A  want 
in  most  homes — The  effect  of  flowers — The  color  cure — In  what  life  consists — 
Plato's  teachings — Tastes  in  books — The  Bishop  of  Winchester's  opinions — 
Book -borrowers — A  vulgar  habit — Some  annolators — An  intellectual  small  pox 
— Scribblers  and  note-takers — A  good  plan — The  lieginnings  of  a  library — 
General  culture  versus  special  knowledge — Dickens  and  Thackeray — Some 
other  authors" — Archbishop  Trench's  opinion — A  guiding  principle — Different 
mental  foods — Poetry — Its  rank  and  influence — Indiscriminate  reading — Charles. 
Kingsley — Early  scepticism — Destructive  influences — Wordsworth's  "  excursion  " 
— What  poetry  is — Two  studies — Shakespeare's  and  Milton's  lives — What  is 
invaluable  in  a  library — Some  good  essays — What  boys  like — Bulwer  Lytton's 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

advice — Dickens'  child-history — "  If" — Mrs.  Barbauld's  poem — General  Wolfe's 
declaration — Thomas  Edward — The  Scotch  naturalist — The  books  one  should 
read — A  good  motto Ii8 

CHOICE  OF  OCCUPATION. 

Doing  nothing — The  effect  of  continued  idleness — Overworked  people — God's  noble- 
man— An  important  act — Mistakes  of  fathers — The  case  of  the  minister — The 
unhappy  man — A  great  minister — Michael  Angelo  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci — "A 
rolling  stone" — Pleasure  in  work — The  efforts  of  children — The  "well  done" — 
Mistakes  in  choosing  work — A  typical  picture — A  stalwart  cook — Girls  without 
talent — A  chance  for  genius — "What  some  men  would  make — "  The  father  of 
the  man" — Some  great  men — Franklin  as  a  boy — Force  of  character — "  Know 
thyself" — Why  Solomon  doubted — Co-operation — Sowing  and  reaping — Every 
man's  duty — "  The  night  cometh" — A  noble  ambition — Good  old  Bible  words..   137 

IN  THE  SICK-ROOM. 

Were  life-laws  obeyed — Dr.  Richardson's  observations — Natural  death — Every  house 
an  occasional  hospital — A  vital  necessity — Women  interested — Lectures  on  a 
baby — A  good  hand-book — Health  essentials — Ventilation — Laws  for  the  sick- 
room— Infectious  diseases — Personal  cleanliness — A  slow  poison — A  great  dan- 
ger— Sponging — Beds  and  bedding — Relief  in  time  of  weakness — Miss  Nightin- 
gale's sayings — Blankets  and  comfortables — Dr.  Burdette  on  cottage  hospitals 
— The  draw-sheet — Pure  air  and  suitable  food — Irritability  of  brain — Why  sleep 
is  important — The  matter  of  noise — A  calm  manner — The  faculty  of  observation 
— Objectionable  habits  in  the  sick-room — Horrible  monotony — An  olci -fashioned 
notion — A  weight  on  any  one — The  baby  in  the  sick-room — Some  errors  of  the 
past — The  food  cure — Dr.*  Edward  Smith's  book — An  essential  to  health — • 
Starved  in  the  midst  of  plenty — A  great  comfort — What  beef-tea  is — Some  mis- 
takes about  nourishment — Pavy's  rules — The  appearance  of  things — Duties  to 
one's  self — Powers  called  into  play  in  sickness — "  Having  done  all,  to  stand  " — 
Tables  of  diet — Appetites  of  convalescents — Beef-essence  and  tea — Broths  and 
gruels — Some  dainty  dishes  for  the  sick 153 

THE  PHYSICIAN  IN  THE  HOME. 

Knowledge  of  medicine — Fits  and  starts  in  health-taking — Doctors  and  medicines 
are  luxuries — Like  unto  the  curfew  bell — The  village  doctor — The  ideal  parish — 
"  Cheer  but  not  inebriate" — The  cemetery  of  Healthytown — The  good  old  parson 
— Farmer  Freshtwig — The  stories  of  the  doctor  and  the  undertaker — "  Wash  and 
be  clean" — A  result  of  unnatural   training — "Too  tired  to  be  clean" — The 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

greatest  preservatives  of  health — A  fact  established — How  to  take  a  bath — Cold 
feet — Chewing  and  bolting  food — A  fruitful  cause  of  dyspepsia — What  to  keep  in 
the  house — Exercise — A  folly — Where  stimulants  are  useful — Fresh  air  opponents 
— A  deceitful  prophet — A  disagreeable  mission — Ugly  mouths — Teeth  from  the 
dentist — Pomatum  and  bear's  grease — "  Lastly,  gentle  reader  " 177 

MEDICINAL  AND  HYGIENIC  RECIPES. 

Bruises — Cramps  —  Headaches — Lumbago — Measles^-Diarrhoea — Poison — Stings  — 
Toothache  —  Whooping-cough  —  Bronchitis — Erysipelas  —  Jaundice — How  to 
give  chloroform — Evil  effects  of  ice-water — Cold  tea — To  purify  rooms  after 
sickness — To  make  pepsin — A  powerful  antidote — How  to  treat  a  cold — Sick 
stomach — Soda  for  burns — Acid  burns — Insects  in  the  ear — The  night  air  super- 
stition— Advice  to  dyspeptics — Alcohol  and  dyspepsia — Disinfectants — Mental 
headache — Sprained  ankle — Inflamed  eyes — Early  rising — Preventive  against 
sea-sickness — In  drowning  cases — The  airing  of  beds — Advice  with  reason — 
Various  remedies — Sleep — Perfect  ventilation — Household  diet — Ventilation  of 
cellars — Cure  for  earache — The  prevention  of  sunstroke — Worth  knowing  and 
remembering — Cure  for  a  felon — Sticking-plaster — Diphtheria  and  sore  throat — 
Stiffness  and  aching  limbs — The  lemon — Fasting — Neuralgia  and  sciatica — 
Catarrh — Coughing — Croup — Other  remedies 184 

ECONOMY  IN  THE  HOME. 

The  dollar  saved — Mistaken  ideas — The  "  penny  wise  and  pound  foolish  " — Unwise 
acts — Not  an  easy  habit  to  acquire — "  The  rainy  day  " — Pride  which  shrinks — 
Ten  cents  a  day — The  constant  droppings— A  suggestive  table — Rothschild's 
income — The  foundation  principle  in  economy — One's  health  and  generous 
living — Utilizing  remainders— Clothing  the  body — Bargaining  house-keepers — 
Poor  Moses  in  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield  " 216 

LIFE  AT  HOME. 

The  first  sure  symptom  of  a  mind  in  health — The  disturbing  element — The  undoing 
of  peace  and  happiness — The  deadly  nightshade — The  unsafe  element — Abnor- 
mal tendencies — The  secret  of  a  happy  home — The  Jacobs  and  Esaus — The 
Cinderella  in  the  home — The  innate  narrowness  of  parents — Unkindness  to 
children — Petting  and  spoiling — Pigmy  lords — A  miniature  republic — The  sensi- 
tive spot — Diversities  of  gifts  in  children — Memories  of  birthdays — Rebekah  a 
bad  mother — The  dead  baby — A  piteous  spectacle — Love  sweetens  everything 
— The  reformation  within  that  makes  the  real  home 222 


CONTENTS.  XV 

HOUSEHOLD  ORNAMENTATION. 

Antimacassars — Work-baskets  —  Aprons — Wall-baskets — Silk  curtain  bands — Per- 
fume sachets — To  crystallize  grasses — To  press  flowers — Hanging-baskets — 
Design  for  screens — The  hanging  of  pictures — The  question  of  fireboards — The 
ubiquitous  Japanese  fan — Sachets — Economical  mats — Velvet  painting — Covers 
for  tables  and  chairs — Pin-cushions  and  carriage  rugs — Pretty  tidies — To  use 
ferns — The  place  for  thermometers — Case  for  overshoes — Salad  oil  bottles  for 
vases — Curtains — Waste-paper  baskets — Easels — Watch  and  jewelry  cases — 
Dados  of  colored  matting — Zephyr  balls — The  Kensington  work — A  pretty  mat 
— Skeleton  leaves — Tapestry  work — Basil  leather  work — Cabinets — Cheap  mate- 
rials for  portieres — Seaweed — Cut  work — A  coverlet  wrought  by  Mary,  Queen 
of  Scots — The  Kensington  stitch — A  clothes  bag — Sewing  buttons  on — How  to 
make  netting — Fire-place  curtains — Pen-wipers  and  scrap-bags — Ottoman  and 
chair  covers — Lace  albums — Pretty  contrivances  for  bed-rooms — Boxes  and 
trunks 23a' 

FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE. 

The  taste  for  the  beautiful — The  influence  of  flowers — "  The  wilderness  to  blossom" 
— A  beauty  which  Solomon  saw — ^The  love  of  flowers — Matthew  Arnold's  expres- 
sion— As  aids  to  memory — Ophelia's  emblems  of  the  feelings  of  the  heart — The 
"sweet  gardening  toil" — There  there  are  no  flowers — The  garden  of  Eden — 
"  Nothing  but  leaves  " — General  directions  for  flower  growing — Roses — Their 
training  and  their  enemies — A  window  plant — Watering  window  plants  and  win- 
dow gardening — Geraniums — Plow  to  preserve  flowers  in  sand — Repotting  plants 
— The  Catalonian  jessamine — A  water  bouquet — A  flower-bed  —  Seasonable 
hints — Plants  at  rest — Flower  raising — English  ivy — To  keep  cut  flowers  fresh 
— Tuberoses — Fancy  fern-pans — Fuchsias — How  to  set  grafts — The  cause  of 
buds  blasting — To  grow  hyacinths  in  water  and  in  moss — Propagating  plants — 
Begonias — Camellia  japonica — Preserving  autumn  leaves — Rockeries  and  grot- 
tos— The  preservation  of  bouquets — To  transplant  mignonette — Planting  flower 
seeds — Training  tomato  plants — ^How  the  Japanese  restore  faded  flowers — 
Hyacinths — Tulips,  etc 263 

THE  LAUNDRY. 

A  restful  sight — To  wash  well — Some  hints  to  housekeepers — Soaking  clothes  over 
night — Washing  directions — Washing  and  bleaching  flannels — Sprinkling  clothes 
— Colored  wool  fabrics — To  v/nsh  black  goods — Light-colored  cashmeres — Re- 
moving spots — How  to  wnsh  blankets,  light-colored  calicoes,  delicate  muslins, 
cambrics,  silk  handkerchiefs  and  stockings,  white  cashmeres,  and  lace  curtains — 
Tlie  virtues  of  borax — To  remove  mildew — To  do  up  and  renovate  black  silk — 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

Putting  away  clothes — To  remove  stains  from  linen — Various  recipes — Cleaning 
cloth  garments — Removing  fruit-stains — To  bleach  cotton — Some  recipes  for 
dyeing^To  revive  kid-gloves— Bleaching  process — Starch — The  care  of  towels- 
Stains,  etc 290 

THE    TOILET. 

A  trite  old  saying — The  beauty  worthy  a  name — A  tell-tale  feature — A  good  com- 
plexion— Madame  Recamier — Her  strongest  point — A  cosmetic  for  the  face — 
To  be  handsome — To  remove  wrinkles — Directions  for  painting  wrinkles  out 
of  the  face — A  nice  preparation  for  chapped  hands — A  harmless  cosmetic — To 
disperse  freckles — A  pleasant  perfume — Buttermilk  as  a  cosmetic — Toilet  soap 
— A  good  method  for  removing  superfluous  hair — To  remove  flesh-worms — 
Crimping  hair — A  mouth  wash — Preservation  of  the  teeth — Some  bad  liabits — 
To  remove  j^imples — Care  of  the  hands — To  clear  the  complexion — To  reduce 
the  flesh — A  harmless  dye J04 

COMPANY  IN  THE  HOME. 

The  choice  of  friends — What  true  friendship  is — Two  proverbs — Charles  Kingsley's 
saying — Don  Quixotte  and  Sancho  Panza — Constant  familiarity — Pope's  lines — 
With  whom  not  to  be  intimate — Dr.  Johnson  and  his  Boswell — The  reminiscences 
of  silent  hours — Our  neighbors — A  French  exile  and  Napoleon  the  Third — The 
household  a  sheepfold — Scabby  and  healthful  sheep — "Avoid  bad  company" — 
Mischief-making  persons — Home  rulers — Tittle-tattle — Gossips — Hackneyed  ex- 
pressions— The  tragic  and  melodramatic  incidents  in  the  village  circle — "I 
always  said  so" — The  tell -tah — Victims  and  critics — The  enemies  of  peaceful 
homes — Untimely  and  unprofitable  visitors— The  distinguishing  trait  of  home- 
life — Altered  manners  of  friends — Malevolent  ]-.eo|jle — A  rack  of  self-torture — 
Miss  Tattle — Mr.  Teller — Underground  misunderstandings — Dr.  Griswold  and 
Thackeray — "Do  I  look  like  a  snob?" — The  natural  curiosity  of  the  idle — • 
Strong  measures  against  gossips — Busy  people — Mrs.  Fuss  and  Miss  Feathers — 
An  untimely  visit — Self-protection — A  compliment  worth  having — To  make 
friends  is  to  be  friendly — The  voice  a  tremendous  force — Casting  pearls  before 
swine — When  company  is  oppressive — Home  should  not  be  a  tavern  or  a  club 
— The  old  proverb^A  home  where  pleasant  people  gather 314 

HOME    MEMORIES. 

"I  remember" — The  earliest  scenes — Covvper's  description  of  his  mother's  picture — 
The  Madonna — The  dearest  of  all  memories — "  Dear  kindly  faces  " — The 
nurse's  arms — Her   influence  in  the  home — Familiar    objects — The  preserve- 


CONTENTS.  XVn 

closet  and  the  smacking  of  lips — The  garden  and  garden-gate — Memories  of 
sisters  and  brothers — Carlo's  bark  and  Dobbins'  trot — In  the  twilight  hour — The 
mysteries  of  the  fire — An  element  the  Persians  worsliipped — Wliat  fire  suggests 
— Fireside  musings— The  "Dies  Irse" — The  Yule  log  when  the  fire  is  out — 
The  wanderer's  return — Stories  around  the  fireside^ — Grandma's  reminiscences — 
"  Burn  brightly,  winter  fire  " — "  Home,  Sweet  Home,"  by  John  Howard  Payne, 
a  world-famous  song — The  poet's  own  fireside  (see  frontispiece) — Where  he 
first  heard  the  air — The  song  written  for  an  opera — Where  written — Facts  about 
Payne's  life — His  return  to  New  York — His  words  at  a  banquet — An  orphan 
and  exile — "A  name  to  live  " — A  story  in  this  connection — His  song  a  magic 

"  sesame  "  which  opens  all  hearts 326 

• 

PETS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD. 

"  Poor  relations" — The  dog  and  the  horse  familiar  family  friends — The  reasoning 
powers  of  some  dogs — De  Long's  mistake  in  killing  the  dogs  with  hi-,  party — 
Power  of  dogs  to  find  food  through  scent — Brute  instinct  like  supernatural  rev- 
elation— Seven  little  kittens — Family  conference — Six  cats  to  die — Remarkable 
instinct  of  the  deserted  animals — Ishmaels  without  Hagar — The  miseries  of  the 
feline  Arabs — A  ghastly  travelling  party  of  three — Eight  miles  over  a  strange 
road — A  dog's  affection — No  magnanimity  in  cats — The  biography  of  dogs — 
The  cat  likened  unto  Jacob  as  a  supplanter — Tray  and  Tahitha — Kittens  and 
parrots — Canary  birds — Rabbits — Guinea-pigs  and  ravens — The  hand  that  feeds  ' 
the  animals — Two  pets  enough — The  dog  first  in  rank — Faithful  and  affectionate 
— The  vacant  kennel — The  ancient  Athenians  and  dogs — The  grief  of  dogs  — 
The  dog  "  one  of  us" — The  training  and  education  of  dogs — The  first  thing  to 
be  taught— The  canine  gourmand — Mercy  and  manners — Care  of  canaries,  par- 
rots and  mocking-birds — How  to  feed  and  care  for  them — Some  diseases  to 
which  they  succumb 3^7 

THE   MOTHER  IN  THE  HOME. 

A  typical  mother — Test  of  character — Self-denial  and  tact — A  pen-picture  of  an 
ideal  woman — How  she  met  poverty,  change  and  rebellion — Occupation  for  her 
children — Friend  and  counsellor — Fortunate  children — Hard  work  and  happi- 
ness— Mending  and  painting  a  fence — Out-door  improvements — Helping  hands 
— The  spirit  of  improvement — Plans  and  surprises — Making  home  beauti''ul  — 
An  eye-sore — Amateur  workers — A  rockery — Planting  an  arbor  and  hiding  a 
poultry-yard — Pecuniary  independence — A  beautiful  home — A  mother's  reward 
—  Her  life-work  and   influence-^A  gracious  boon — Such  a  mother  the  rarest 

possession J4y 

2 


XVI 11  CONTENTS. 

DUTY  OF  PARENTS  TO  CHILDREN. 

A  codicil  to  the  fifth  commandment — Martyrs  among  children — The  cruelty  of  injus- 
tice— The  memory  of  a  wrong— The  child-life  of  the  Saviour — What  a  theme 
— His  commandment  to  children — Reaping  what  is  sown — An  obnoxious  vice 
— The  saddest  of  retrospects — Ignorance  of  the  laws  of  life — Unfortunate 
heritages — The  sins  of  the  fathers — Rights  of  children — Early  and  heedless 
marriages — Young  and  over-burdened  mothers — Commonplace  people — What 
every  child  is  entitled  to — A  celebrated  divine's  singular  conclusion — Mother- 
hood unrespected — The  inhumanity  of  man — An  unhappy  and  discordant  man 
— Why  he  was  such — The  crime  of  infanticide — The  sins  of  ignorance — A  proph- 
ecy regarding  the  nation 357 

DEATH  IN  THE  HOME. 

Jeremy  Taylor's  views  of  death — A  tranquil  sleep — The  selfishness  of  the  living — 
Old  heathens  an  example  to  Christians — Death  in  the  Home — Rigid  English 
ceremonies — Gloomy  views  of  death — Inconsistencies  of  Christians — Lord 
By  ion's  saying — The  dead  near  us — A  victory  over  human  weakness — To  meet 
again — Such  a  hope  rational — Human  affections  more  than  animal  weaknesses 
— Outward  observances  of  death — Anniversaries  of  deaths — Pessimists  and  moral 
dyspeptics — "  May-be's  of  the  hereafter  " — The  home  minaret  touching  the  blue 
slcy — "  Until  *  mamma '  comes  home  " 365 

HOME  ARCHITECTURE. 

A  noble  ambition — To  own  a  home — The  great  question — A  home  in  fact — Locality 
and  drainage — Country  and  suburban  homes — Sydney  Smith  on  Salisbury  Plain 
— "  Four  miles  from  a  lemon  " — Mistakes  of  builders — Inconvenient  localities 
—  Antagonistic  possibilities  —  External  and  internal  arrangements  —  Where 
"  every  prospect  pleases" — Why  St.  Simon  Stylites  lived  on  a  pillar — Errors  in 
house-building — A  vast  deal  of  discomfort — Innumerable  doors — A  feeling  they 
produce — Staircases  and  pantries — A  question  of  knobs  and  hinges — A  woman's 
knowledge  of  closets — Storage-room  with  pegs  and  shelves — Life-saving 
problems — Fire-proof  houses — Heating  facilities — Health  before  ornament — 
Designs  for  house  architecture — Interior  arrangements  of  homes 370 

THE  KITCHEN  IN  THE  HOME. 

What  it  should  be — Brillat-Savarin — The  kitchen  in  old  Roman  houses — How  some 
■  housekeepers  neglect  kitchens — The  centre  warmth  of  home — American  stom- 
achs— How  business  men  eat — Druggists  in  demand — The  diet  of  some  men  and 
woman — Ills  the  doctor  cannot  remedy — The  art  required  to  cook — Alfred  the 


CONTENTS.  Xlx 

Great  and  the  cakes — Attention  and  consciousness  of  attention  required  to  cook 
— Leaden  bread — The  Englishman  in  China — The  disguising  power  of  gravy  and 
sauces — The  rule  of  the  Athenian  philosopher — Socrates'  preferences — King 
George  the  Third  and  apple  dumplings — The  beggar  and  George  the  Fourth — The 
wedding  breakfast  of  Charles  the  Sixth — The  diet  of  Friar  Tuck  and  the  "  gen- 
tle hermit  of  the  dale  " — The  foods  of  different  countries — Sir  John  Franklin  and 
the  Esquimau  lad — The  simplest  of  all  food — The  frying  pan  and  other  cook- 
ing utensils — Talleyrand  and  the  fat  Bishop — The  American  kitchen — German 
and  English  cookery — The  best  teacher  to  have  in  the  kitchen 395 

COOKERY  RECIPES. 

Soups — Fish — Oysters — Meats — Poultry  and  Game — Sauces  and  Gravies — Vegetables 
-—Eggs,  Omelets,  etc. — Salads — Pies — Puddings — Creams,  Jellies,  Custards,  etc. 
— Preserves,  Canned  Fruits,  etc. — Pickles  and  Catsups — Breads  and  Breakfast 
Cakes — Cakes  and  Icings — Coffees,  Teas  and  Beverages — Butter,  Milk,  Cheese, 
etc .- 403 

MISCELLANEOUS  HOUSEHOLD  RECIPES. 
Odds  and  ends  for  household  use — Cements,  Pastes,  etc — Hints  to  housekeepers 550 

SOCIAL  FORMS. 

Cards  of  compliment — Invitation  to  a  wedding — Invitation  to  a  reception — Admis- 
sion card  formula — Reception  card — Announcement  of  marriage — Marriage 
anniversaiies 579 


THE  HEARTHSTONE:  of.,  LIFE  AT  HOIE 


distillin 
is  with 


HOMES,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN, 

"  What's  a  house  ?     You  may  buy  it,  or  build  it,  or  rent, 
It  may  be  a  mansion,  a  cottage,  a  tent; 
Its  furniture  costly,  or  humble  and  mean; 
High  walls  may  surround  it,  or  meadows  of  green; 
Tall  servants  in  livery  stand  in  the  hall. 
Or  but  one  little  maiden  may  wait  on  you  all ; 
The  table  may  qroan  with  rich  viands  and  rare, 
Or  potatoes  and  bread  be  its  costliest  fare. 
The  inmates  may  glitter  in  purple  and  gold, 
Oi'  iheir  raiment  be  homely  and  tattered  and  old. 
'Tis  a  house,  and  no  more,  which  vile  money  may  buy; 
It  may  ring  with  a  laugh  or  but  echo  a  sigh. 

"  But  a  home  must  be  warmed  with  the  embers  of  love, 
Which  none  from  its  hearthstone  may  ever  remove. 
And  he  lighted  at  eve  with  a  heart-kindled  smile, 
Whkrh  a  breast,  though  in  sorrow,  of  woe  may  beguile. 
A  home  must  be  '  Home,'  for  no  words  can  express  it— 
Unless  you  have  known  it,  you  never  can  guess  it; 
'Tis  in  vain  to  descriiie  what  it  means  to  a  heart 
Which  can  live  out  its  life  on  the  bubbles  of  art. 
It  may  be  a  palace,  it  may  be  a  cot, 
It  matters  not  which  and  it  matters  not  what; 
'Tis  a  dwelling  perfumed  with  the  incense  of  love, 
A  beautiful  type  of  the  home  that's  above." 

HERE  arc  some  perfumes  so  aromatic  that  one  need 
not  uncork  the  bottle  that  contains  them  to  have  our 
clothes  and  rooms  and  furniture  made  fragrant  by 
them.  They  find  their  way  through  thick  glass  and 
wood,  and  yet  do  not  evaporate  or  decrease,  but  re- 
main the  same  in  bulk,  although  fragrance  is  always 
g  from  them  and  sweetening  everything  around  them.  So  it 
the  word  Home.     There  is  no  other  word  in  any  dictionar;- 

(25) 


26  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

that  IS  so  precious,  so  all-pervading  and  so  full  of  tenderest  memory 
and  affection.  If  there  be  any  nation  that  is  without  a  word  for  home 
in  its  vocabulary,  then  we  may  be  sure  that  it  has  no  name  for  God, 
for  heaven,  and  for  those  unselfish  virtues  and  mutual  influences 
which  make  the  crown  of  our  humanity.  Indeed,  so  intimately  is 
the  idea  of  home  associated  with  that  of  God,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
of  humanity  on  the  other,  that  the  ancient  heathen  had  their  gods 
in  their  homesteads,  like  family  relics  and  heirlooms.  At  the  siege 
of  Troy,  ^neas  and  his  father,  Anchises,  are  chiefly  anxious  to  save 
and  carry  away  with  them,  in  their  exile  from  the  ruined  home,  their 
Penates,  or  household  gods,  as  soon  as  they  have  seen  to  it  that  the 
little  lad  lulus  is  safe.  All  religions  worthy  of  the  name  have  had 
home  as  their  subjective,  and  God  as  their  objective,  basis.  So  in- 
timately are  these  two  ideas  interwoven  that  it  is  quite  as  true  to 
define  man  as  a  home-building  and  home-loving  as  a  God-fearing  or 
worshipping  being.  The  original  idea  that  the  ancients  had  in 
building  temples  and  churches  was  to  make  a  home  for  God,  or  the 
gods  among  whom  they  divided  the  attributes  of  Creator  and  Pro- 
tector. David  is  no  sooner  called  away  from  the  sheepfolds  than  he 
is  possessed  with  the  grand  enterprise  of  the  temple  on  Mount  Zion. 
The  palace,  the  splendid  home  for  himself,  does  not  satisfy  him,  so 
long  as  the  Deity  to  whom  he  owes  his  life  and  fortunes  has  no 
lAational  sanctuary.  He  resolves  to  take  no  rest  for  his  eyes  nor 
slumber  for  his  eyelids  until  he  has  found  out  a  home  for  his  Lord, 
a  "  habitation  "  for  the  God  of  Israel.  And  when  his  son  Solomon 
completed  the  grand  cathedral  which  his  father  had  begun,  his  as- 
piration is  that  God  will  accept  it  as  an  earthly  cottage  not  worthy, 
of  course,  of  Him  who  dwelleth  in  the  heavens,  but  still  well  furnished 
and  complete,  having  in  it  the  perpetual  fires  and  incense  of  home 
and  the  voices  of  prayer  and  joy  and  sadness  that  sound  so  home- 
like. David  even  rejoiced  at  the  thought  that  its  very  minarets  and 
towers  would  be  homes  for  the  birds  that  were  wanderers  in  the  sky. 
Its  altars  were  to  afford  the  swallow  a  home  and  the  sparrow  a  nest 
for  her  little  ones. 


HOMES,    ANCIENT    AND    MODERN, 


27 


Home  is  written  on  the  heaven  above  us  and  the  earth  beneath. 
Said  Rowland  Taylor,  as  he  walked  from  London  to  his  dear  parish 
of  Hadley,  within  whose  limits  he  was  to  be  burned  alive  for  his  re- 
ligious opinions  in  the  dark  days  of  Mary  and  of  Bonner,  "There  are 
but  one  or  two  stiles  more  for  us  to  climb  over  and  then  I  shall  be 
home."  It  cheered  the  good  man's  heart  that  since  he  had  to  die  he 
was  to  die  near  home.  To  be  away  from  home,  either  when  full  of 
life  or  when  expecting  death,  is  to  be  lonely  and  to  feel  a  void  in 
one's  heart.  Hence,  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  modern  hymns 
or  sacred  poems,  "  Lead,  kindly  Light,  amid  the  encircling  gloom," 
John  Henry  Newman  gives  expression  to  this  loneliness  of  feeling 
when  he  says, 

"  The  night  is  dark  and  I  am  far  from  home." 

Who  of  my  readers  has  not  felt  the  magic  influence  of  John 
Howard  Payne's  world-famous  song  of  "  Home,  sweet  home  "  ?  The 
secret  of  its  popularity  is  not  in  any  special  excellence  of  meter,  or 
even  originality  of  thought.  Rather  it  is  the  utter  absence  of  origin- 
ality that  makes  it  universal.  It  merely  voices  in  simple  strain  the 
melody  of  every  human  heart  since  the  first  home  was  built  on  earth 
till  now.  It  is  a  subject  that  never  tires,  but  has  eternal  memory  and 
hope  in  it.  Home  is  a  talisman,  and  we  whisper  the  word  in  our  own 
hearts  and  wear  the  thought  of  it  about  us  like  a  charm  or  amulet. 
Like  a  spring  gushing  through  hard  rocks  it  sparkles  with  constantly 
renewed  freshness,  and  our  hearts  yearn  toward  it, 

"  As  for  some  dear  familiar  strain 
Untired  we  ask  and  ask  again. 
Ever,  in  its  melodious  store, 
Finding  a  spell  unheard  before." 

Whenever  the  time  comes  to  a  young  man  that  he  ceases  to  love 
the  home  of  his  parents  and  his  childhood,  he  may  be  sure  that 
there  is  something  wrong  with  him,  and  that  morally  he  is  on  a 
downward  track.  The  first  symptom  of  the  loss  of  purity  of  heart 
in  a  youth  is  when  he  begins  to  speak  disparagingly  or  unfilially  of 
home.     The  greatest  men  in  the  history  of  this  and   every   other 


28  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

country  have  been  and  still  are  those  who  cling  with  the  strongest 
affection  to  the  scenes  and  memories  of  their  childhood.  The  good 
old  patriarchal  or  domestic  sentiment  can  afford  to  be  sneered  at,  for 
its  power  is  confessed  by  all  of  us  at  last.  The  prodigal  son  may 
take  his  portion  of  the  common  stock  and  turn  it  into  money,  which 
he  finds  to  be  very  hard  cash  indeed  when  he  has  squandered  it  in 
dissipation,  but  when  he  comes  to  himself,  and  his  better  nature  and 
real  manhood  assert  themselves,  he  feels  that  the  best  thing  he  can 
do  is  to  go  home.  Too  often,  however,  regret  is  felt  too  late,  or  it  is 
too  late  to  reinstate  himself  He  enters  the  old  village  with  sad  mis- 
givings, and  when  he  looks  at  the  old  home  he  finds  it  changed,  and 
instinct  tells  him  that  other  hearts  than  those  he  loved  inhabit  it,  and 
that  other  hands  than  those  that  once  caressed  him  have  changed  ivs 
style  and  aspect.  He  asks,  like  Joseph,  if  the  old  man  is  yet  alive, 
and  soon  learns  that  all  there  is  remaining  of  his  home  is  beneath 
the  mounds  in  the  village  churchyard.  Fiction  has  never  exceeded 
in  description  the  real  despair  and  solitude  of  the  homeless  man. 

We  can  remember  such  a  case,  which  is  but  typical  of  many 
thousands  of  others.  A  young  lad  who  had  been  gently  born  and 
nurtured  contracted  the  youthful  fever  of  love  of  adventure  and  dis- 
lil:e  of  regular  living.  Like  ambition  the  adventurous  spirit  is  not  to 
be  condemned,  for  without  it  where  would  have  been  the  discoverers 
and  heroes  of  the  world?  But  with  many  lads  it  is  a  mere  mock 
hf.Toism,  and  only  shame  prevents  them  from  turning  back,  and  con- 
fessing as  much,  before  they  have  got  fairly  out  of  sight  of  the  curl- 
ing smoke  of  the  home  chimney.  For  once  that  the  voice  of  one's 
good  angel  whispers 

"  Turn  again,  Whittington, 
Lord  Mayor  of  London  !" 

obedience  to  which  leads  on  to  fortune,  there  are  a  thousand  cases 
where  the  voice  says,  "  Turn  again,"  in  another  sense,  and  bids  us  re- 
trace our  footsteps  and  go  home  again.  The  wilful,  generous-hearted 
lad  we  have  in  memory  was  touched  with  the  contagion  of  adven- 
ture, and,  in  spite  of  all  advice  and  kinden  treaty,  would  go  to  sea. 


HOMES,    ANCIENT    AND    MODERN.  2g 

But  of  the  sea  he  tired  after  one  outbound  voyage,  and  then  ran  off 
"  to  the  diggings "  in  Austraha.  Next  he  was  a  sheep  farmer,  but 
he  lost  all  that  he  made.  Sadder  and  wiser  he  worked  his  way 
home  again  before  the  mast.  But  what  did  he  find  ?  His  father  and 
mother  both  dead,  murmuring  the  wanderer's  name  with  their  last 
breath,  and  the  old  homestead  pulled  down  to  make  way  for  a  rail- 
road. The  bronzed  and  weather-beaten  man,  not  yet  much  past 
thirty,  visited  his  parents'  graves,  and  no  doubt  shed  tears  as  he  re- 
called their  looks  and  voices  and  all  their  goodness  to  him  in  his 
early  years.  From  the  churchyard  he  strolled  a  mile  to  the  gram- 
mar school  where  he  had  learned  his  mother  tongue  on  paper  and 
the  elements  of  Latin  and  mathematics.  The  old  porch  and  the  dor- 
mitories and  the  long  school-room  and  the  playground  were  all  there ; 
but  all  the  living  associations  were  gone.  The  old  Head  Master  was 
dead ;  his  assistant  teachers  were  all  gone  and  scattered  none  knew 
where.     He  might  have  sighed  with  gentle  Charles  Lamb  : 

"  I  have  had  playmates,  I  have  had  companions, 
In  my  days  of  childhood,  in  my  joyful  school-days ; 
All,  all  are  gone,  the  old  familiar  faces. 

"  Ghost-like,  I  paced  round  the  haunts  of  my  childhood. 
Earth  seemed  a  desert  I  w^as  bound  to  traverse, 
Seeking  to  find  the  old  familiar  faces. 

"  llow  some  they  have  died,  and  some  they  have  left  nie. 
And  some  are  taken  from  me;  all  are  departed; 
All,  all  are  gone,  the  old  familiar  faces." 

Afterward,  when  his  thoughts  grew  calmer  and  he  was  able  from 
one  source  or  another  to  glean  some  personal  intelligence  of  his 
companions  and  schoolfellows,  he  found  that  one  was  a  great  Senator, 
another  a  bishop,  and  another  a  chief-justice,  while  he  himself  had 
but  given  another  example  to  the  proverb  that  "  a  rolling  stone 
gathers  no  moss,"  and  that  "  the  lane  called  By-and-By  leads  to  the 
house  of  Never." 

Sometimes,  however,  the  spirit  of  adventure  is  not  mere  restlessness 


30  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

and  impatience,  but  is  the  true  outcome  of  a  brave  heart  and  stead- 
fast will.  But  in  such  cases  there  is  no  eagerness  to  get  away  from 
home.  That  is  a  hard  wrench,  and  is  only  undergone  as  a  painful 
duty.  Indeed,  the  test  of  its  being  one's  duty  to  leave  hom^e  is  often 
the  pain  it  costs  us  to  do  so.  If  we  wish  to  go  away  we  ought  to 
make  quite  sure  that  we  are  right  in  going ;  but  if  it  almost  breaks 
our  heart  to  part  from  all  that  has  made  our  past  life  dear  to  us,  we 
should  listen  attentively  when  duty  bids,  or  seems  to  bid  us  go.  In 
such  cases  even  the  wide  ocean  does  not  part  us  wholly  from  our 
home,  either  by  night  or  day.  The  dying  soldier  on  the  distant 
battle-field,  the  shipwrecked  sailor,  the  merchant  in  a  foreign  land, 
all  think  lovingly  of  the  old  home.  There  is  nothing  more  worthy 
of  admiration  in  the  scantily  educated  domestic  servants  who  come 
to  this  country  from  Germany  or  Ireland  than  the  self-denying  affec- 
tion with  which  they  save  their  little  earnings  that  they  may  send 
help  to  "  the  old  folks  at  home."  Statistics  show  that  the  money 
sent  by  hard-working  servants  through  the  post-office  amounts 
to  a  very  large  sum  every  year.  Surely  these  faithful  hearts  deserve 
and  will  one  day  possess  a  "  home  of  their  own." 

There  is  a  class  of  persons,  although  not,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  a  very 
large  one,  who  are  without  natural  affection,  to  use  a  Pauline  phrase, 
and  so  are  incapable  of  loving  or  caring  for  a  home.  As  the  Latin 
proverb  describes  the  man  who  is  "  never  less  alone  than  when 
alone,"  so  one  may  describe  such  misanthropic  members  of  the 
human  family  as  never  less  at  home  than  when  at  home.  And  not 
only  are  such  cross-grained  creatures  never  at  home  themselves,  but 
they  prevent  others  from  feeling  at  home  in  their  presence.  One  ill- 
conditioned  and  sour-tempered  inmate  can  blight  the  peace  and 
happiness  of  a  home.  As  "  one  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole 
world  kin,"  so  the  touch  of  ill-nature  can  make  everything  unkind. 

Do  we  sufficiently  instill  into  our  children  the  love  of  home  and 
all  that  home  connotes  and  stands  for  ?  The  best  way  to  make  the 
young  ones  love  it  is  to  make  it  as  cheery  and  pleasant  for  them  as 
we  can.     It  is  a  fact  which  the  student  of  social   life  can  scarcely 


HOMES,    ANCIENT    AND    MODERN,  3 1 

avoid  noticing,  that  the  sons  of  particularly  pious  and  straight-laced 
parents  are  generally  much  worse  behaved  when  they  get  their  liberty 
than  those  who  have  been  brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  rational 
liberty  and  candor.  One  may  see  many  a  gray  head  being  bowed 
down  in  sorrow  towards  the  grave  on  account  of  the  disgrace  and 
anxiety  brought  upon  a  family  by  a  son's  profligacy  or  dishonesty. 
Some  of  these  unworthy  sons  of  Christian  parents  have  gone  so  far 
in  criminality  as  to  pull  up  suddenly  inside  of  a  prison ;  but  others 
who  have  been  smart  enough  to  avoid  legal  consequences  have  none 
the  less  branded  themselves  for  life  with  a  mark  upon  their  foreheads 
as  indelible  as  that  of  Cain.  Surely  there  is  some  show  of  reason 
in  the  suspicion  that  the  being  compelled  to  be,  or  feign  to  be, 
"  righteous  overmuch  "  in  their  boyhood,  has  made  them  when  they 
were  able  to  throw  off  the  mask  of  hypocrisy  stand  out  the  more 
conspicuously  in  their  real  character. 

Some  social  philosophers  have  argued  from  such  cases  that  to 
instill  the  principles  of  religion  into  a  child  is  to  make  him  a  hypo- 
crite in  the  nature  of  things,  and  hence  they  have  condemned  the 
habit  of  attendance  at  public  worship,  and  still  more  that  of  domestic 
worship  or  "  family  prayer."  This  seems  to  us  to  carry  the  argument 
too  far,  for  if  there  are  dozens,  or  even  hundreds,  of  cases  where  the 
apparent  effect  of  early  religious  training  upon  the  subsequent 
conduct  has  been  bad,  there  are  thousands  where  it  has  strengthened 
the  will,  kept  guard  over  the  passions,  and  preserved  the  body  and 
mind  in  purity  and  integrity.  Who  can  think  that  such  home 
religion  and  daily  prayers  and  study  of  Scripture  as  those  in  William 
Wilbcrforce's  household  had  a  pernicious  effect  upon  his  children  ? 
In  religious  belief  most  of  them  ran  to  the  opposite  extreme  from 
that  of  their  father,  but  in  conduct  they  never  disgraced  their  early 
training. 

It  should  be  the  ambition  of  every  youth  to  be  a  successful  home 
builder,  and  to  earn  by  early  industry  a  home  of  his  own.  It  is 
dreary  work  to  spend  all  one's  life  in  sowing  that  others  may  reap. 
It  is  quite  true  that 


32  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

"  He  who  by  the  plough  would  thrive, 
Himself  must  either  hold  or  drive ;  " 

but  the  converse  is  not  less  true  that  he  who  holds  or  drives  the 
plough  ought  also  himself  to  thrive  by  it.  This  is  the  great  social 
difficulty  and  problem  that  is  shaking  society  to  its  centre.  Alien 
proprietorship  and  a  tenantry  of  serfs  have  had  their  day,  but  that 
day  is  passing  away  we  trust  forever.  Education  is  now  within  the 
reach  of  all,  and  it  was  only  the  want  of  education  on  the  one  side 
that  made  them  the  social  bondmen  and  mere  hirelings  of  the  other. 
The  troubles  in  Ireland  are  the  result  of  centuries  of  this  unfair  and 
unnatural  inequality.  The  distinctions  of  rich  and  poor  must  always 
exist,  because  riches  and  poverty  are  relative,  not  absolute,  conditions ; 
but  that  the  rich  should  be  idle  and  have  luxuries,  while  the  poor 
work  hard  and  want  for  bread,  is  an  atrocious  and  rotten  state  of  things, 
and  one  that  cannot  last  in  an  age  of  such  decisive  progress  and 
prompt  action  as  our  own.  The  day  cannot  be  distant  when  every 
cultivator  of  the  soil  will  have  a  home  of  his  own ;  but  agrarian  out- 
rages and  murders,  postpone  rather  than  hasten  that  good  time. 

The  Germans  and  the  English  have  been,  of  all  nationalities,  the 
most  conspicuous  for  their  love  of  home.  In  a  newer  country,  whose 
extent  is  so  much  greater  and  where  travel  is  so  much  longer  and 
more  frequent,  the  home  and  its  central  fires  are  not  so  easy  to  pre- 
serve. Americans  have  to  make  new  homes  far  distant  from  each 
other.  But  perhaps  this  necessity  of  frequent  migration  makes  them 
cherish  the  ideal  of  home  the  more.  It  is  a  restless,  homeless,  and 
unsatisfying  way,  that  of  living  in  hotels.  Strange  faces,  however 
pleasant  and  kindly,  do  not  fill  the  place  of  the  old  familiar  faces, 
The  banquet  of  a  palace  in  which  one  is  a  guest  by  courtesy  never 
tastes  as  sweet  as  the  social  meal  in  our  own  home  does.  We  hear 
men  boast  of  travel  and  having  no  continuing  city,  and  flitting  from 
place  to  place  and  seeing  new  sights  and  mixing  with  strange  people; 
but  to  be  a  citizen  of  the  world  is  not  so  good  as  the  citizenship  of 
the  home  circle  and  the  home  fireside.  Those  who  get  tired  of 
housekeeping  live  with  less  trouble  in  a  boarding-house.     But  what 


HOMES,    ANCIENT    AND    MpDERN.  33 

they  save  in  trouble  they  lose  in  comfort.  Chiefly,  they  miss  that 
privacy  which  is  the  sacred  heritage  of  family  life.  The  old  English 
proverb  that  "a  man's  house  is  his  castle"  expresses  this.  In  his 
own  home  he  is  safe  from  intrusion,  "  monarch  of  all  he  surveys," 
master  of  his  own  times  and  ways.  Republicanism  is  good  in 
national  government,  but  not  at  meal  times,  or  when  one  is  reading, 
writing,  or  resting,  and  needs  quiet  and  security  from  intrusion. 
Hence,  of  the  All-Father  it  is  said  that  "  He  setteth  the  solitary  in 
families,"  and  "  maketh  Him  households  like  a  flock  of  sheep,"  and 
sheep  love  their  own  company  and  their  own  shepherd,  and  know  not 
the  voice  of  a  stranger.  There  are  social  marks  and  ways  by  which 
one  can  soon  distinguish  the  man,  woman,  or  child  who  has  a  happy 
home,  from  those  whose  life  is  all  spent  in  publicity,  amid  noise  and 
glare,  without  a  parenthesis  of  introspection,  reflection,  private  study, 
and  home  surroundings. 

If  the  home-building  and  home-sustaining  man  develops  nobler 
traits  of  character  and  is  of  kindlier  mould  than  the  human  bird 
of  passage,  however  rich  his  plumage,  so  the  woman  who  finds  a 
field  for  her  affections  and  unselfishness  in  home  is  truly  beneficent 
and  beautiful.  If  it  be  the  man's  part  to  lay  the  foundations  and 
erect  the  building,  it  is  hers  to  beautify  the  walls  and  enshrine  music 
and  the  kindly  arts  within  them.  It  is  his  to  build  and  hers  to 
beautify.  If  there  be  some  "  lost  arts  "  which  adorned  ancient  homes, 
but  in  which  modern  homes  are  wanting,  it  is  hers  to  restore  and 
bring  them  back.  It  is  woman  who  informs  the  home  with  light  and 
life.  Her  hand  it  is  that  decorates  and  adorns,  that  culls  and  twines 
the  flowers  and  leaves,  and  lets  in  "sweetness  and  light"  into  the 
rooms.  Her  hand  it  is  that  is  cunning  in  the  needlework  and  makes 
even  the  homeliest  fare  tempting  in  look  and  taste.  Her  touch  is  that 
of  a  purifying,  transforming,  and  beautifying  angel  in  the  home,  or 
like  the  magic  wand  of  Cinderella's  fairy  godmother  that  transfigured 
the  neglected  and  ill-clad  child  into  a  maiden  "  fair  to  see,"  decked 
with  taste  and  loveliness,  to  grace  a  palace  and  to  win  a  prince. 

Palace  and  prince,  however,  are  both  superfluous  in  the  true  fairy 
3 


34  THE    HEARTt^TONE;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

tale  of  home.  Genuine  aesthetics  have  their  place  in  the  simple  cottage 
not  less  than  in  the  mansion  which  oppresses  one  by  its  splendor. ' 
The  touch  of  the  Master  of  Life  could  raise  the  poor  man's  as  well 
as  the  nobleman's  child  to  renewed  life  and  strength.  There  is  often 
more  true  life  as  well  as  more  true  love  in  a  cottage  than  in  kings' 
houses,  and  the  true  aesthetic  touch  does  not  need  the  purple  and  fine 
linen  for  a  fabric. 

Amid  a  great  deal  that  is  trite  and  threadbare  in  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde's 
lectures,  there  is  one  remark  which,  although  it  has  been  uttered  and 
thought  a  thousand  times,  cannot  be  repeated  too  often.  It  is  that 
our  American  stoves  and  furnaces  are  destructive  of  the  perfect  ideal 
of  a  home.  One  might  fill  a  volume  instead  of  a  page  with  the 
reminiscences  and  associations  that  gather  around  the  old  grate  fire, 
or  the  still,  older  log  upon  the  hearth.  But  one  cannot  by  any  stretch 
of  imagination  conceive  a  happy  thought  or  genuine  inspiration  to 
have  been  suggested  by,  or  derived  from,  the  modern  stove  or 
heater.  It  is  "  an  abomination  of  desolation  standing  where  it  ought 
not."  Who  does  not  recall,  with  never  fading  pleasure,  the  dear  old 
home-fires  of  the  "  auld  lang"  syne."  We  see  ourself  in  memory's 
mirror  as  we  write,  a  musing,  solitary  child,  looking  and  never  tired 
of  looking,  at  the  nursery  fire.  Those  were  the  days  of  unleavened 
bread,  when  life  had  not  fermented,  and  all  the  chambers  of  imagery 
were  filled  with  visions  bright  and  beautiful.  In  the  twilight,  seated 
on  our  hassock,  and  with  folded  hands,  we  saw  the  angels  and  the 
fairies,  the  "  cloud-capp'd  towers  and  gorgeous  palaces "  of  a  world 
all  our  own,  in  which  sin  and  sorrow  were  not,  nor  evil  persons  nor 
evil  thoughts.  But  there  is  no  augury  in  a  stove ;  divination  is  in 
the  fire,  not  in  the  heat.  There  were  poems  and  romances,  Jacob's 
ladders,  and  radiant  mountains  in  the  dear  old  fire ;  but  one  might  as 
well  seek  in.spiration  in  the  lid  of  a  tin  kettle — we  shall  be  told  that 
James  Watt  found  it  there — as  in  the  coldly-warm,  inclemently- 
heating  stove  of  the  parlors  and  nurseries  of  to-day.  Truly  has  the 
eccentric  young  Irish  lecturer  told  us  that  there  is  nothing  aesthetic 
in  such  severe  domestic  comforts  as  the  stove. 


HOMES,    ANCIENT    AND    MODERN.  35 

But  the  old  Fire  was  Home  itself  in  essence  and  in  miniature.  We 
must  not  now  dilate  upon  its  cheerful  glow,  its  kindly  warmth,  its 
visions  of  the  ideal  future  that  was  not  to  be,  lest  our  readers  fall 
asleep,  or  into  it.  When  we  think  of  it  we  can  understand  how  men 
of  old  "  fought  for  their  altars  and  their  fires,"  especially  the  firesides 
of  home.  The  picture  of  the  circle  round  that  fireside  never  grows 
dim  or  fades. 

"  Dark  shadows  of  approaching  ill 

Fall  thick  upon  life's  forward  track ; 
But  on  the  past  they  stream  not  back, 
What  once  was  bright  remains  so  still.'" 

And  the  centre  of  all  that  once  was  bright  was  the  home  fireside. 
W^hat  stories  were  told  by  its  red  glow  and  flickering  flame  !  What 
books  and  magazines  were  read  aloud  beside  it !  How  much  sweet 
talk  of  absent  ones !  The  wind  that  shrieked  amid  the  leafless  trees, 
or  round  the  corners  of  the  street,  made  us  draw  closer  to  it.  Then 
the  heroic  story,  the  pathetic  poem,  the  narrative  of  hairbreadth 
'scapes,  the  ghost  story  or  tale  of  highway  robbery,  would  hold  us 
spellbound.  But  neither  winds  nor  waves,  nor  ghosts  nor  robbers 
scared  us  till  we  went  to  bed,  for  we  felt  safe  from  physical  and 
spiritual  harm  so  long  as  we  could  see  the  live  coals  burning  on  the 
altar-hearth  of  Home. 


HOME-MAKING  AND  HOME-MANAGEMENT. 

"  In  many  a  village  window  burn 
The  evening  lamps ; 
They  shine  amid  the  dews  and  damps, 
Those  lights  of  home  ! 

"  Afar  the  wanderer  sees  them  glow. 
Now  night  is  near; 

They  gild  his  path  with  radiance  clear. 
Sweet  lights  of  home. 

"  Ye  lode-stars  that  forever  draw 
The  wear)'  heart, 

In  stranger  lands  or  crowded  mart; 
O  !  lights  of  home. 

"  When  my  brief  day  of  life  is  o'er, 
Then  may  I  see, 

Shine  from  the  heavenly  house  for  me 
Dear  lights  of  home." 

|0ME  writer  has  said  that  the  best  security  for  civiliza- 
tion is  the  home,  and  that  upon  its  perpetuity  rests  the 
future  of  the  world.  Certain  it  is  that  without  home- 
life  humanity  would  be  lost  to  all  the  nobler  condi- 
tions of  existence,  and  be  incapacitated  from  elevating 
itself  The  foundation  of  existence  is  home,  and 
about  its  walls  are  entwined  all  the  sweet  memories  of  earth.  Its 
inner  temple,  real  or  ideal,  is  the  shrine  at  which  all  enlightened  man- 
kind worships,  and  its  altar  is  the  Mecca  of  the  heart,  the  Abdul-el- 
Kader  of  the  soul.  Poets  have  written  of  it — minstrels  have  made  it 
the  subject  of  song,  and  to  all  the  world  it  has  been  an  inspiring 
theme  and  a  bright  anticipation. 

To  the  masses  it  exists  as  yet  ideally  only.     The  average  man  and 
woman  know  nothing  of  its  beauty,  its  rest,  or  its  blessings.     It  lives 
(36) 


HOME-MAKING    AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT.  37- 

in  tradition,  is  known  to  their  hearts  in  the  form  of  aspiration  and 
desire,  but  is  a  reality  only  to  the  few.  "  The  place  where  angels 
dwell — that  is  home,"  reads  the  old  German  legend,  and  the  real 
interpretation  of  the  word  is  not  far  different. 

It  takes  but  little  to  make  a  home.  It  requires  little  to  beautify  it, 
but  that  little  lacking,  home  can  exist  only  in  aspiration  and  in 
imagination. 

Harmony  among  those  composing  the  family-circle,  and  a  degree 
of  worldly  comfort  secured,  home  may  indeed  be  a  reality,  and  to 
assist  those  who  are  trying  to  rear  one,  and  to  aid  the  seekers  after 
refinement,  beauty  and  economy  in  it,  these  hints  are  offered ! 

To  make  home-life  beautiful,  to  give  to  it  a  charm  which  it  ought 
to  possess,  to  turn  the  hearts  of  the  young  to  it  with  renewed  affec- 
tion— can  any  task  be  more  inspiring  or  deserving  of  success? 

And  as  the  most  ideal  thing  on  earth  has  as  its  foundation  a  most 
practicable  fact,  the  real  way  to  make  a  home  is  to  build  first  in  that 
portion  upon  which  is  to  depend  so  much  of  the  weal  or  woe  of  the 
house.  Young  beginners  in  home-making  pay  much  attention  to 
outward  surroundings  if  their  means  will  admit,  and  if  they  will  not, 
their  minds  are  more  set  upon  the  arrangement  and  finishing  of  the 
parlor  than  the  other  rooms  of  the  home,  and  they  arc  more  apt  to 
indulge  in  extravagance  there  than  elsewhere.  The  basis  upon  which 
all  homes  should  be  founded  is  good  living,  and  no  matter  how  strait- 
ened the  circumstances,  how  little  there  is  to  be  spent,  this  can  always 
be  secured  if  housekeepers  will  begin  at  the  beginning — that  is,  in  the 
kitchen.  That  they  do  not  thus  begin  is  the  reason  why  there  is  so 
little  real  home-comfort  in  houses;  so  little  restfulness  and  true 
pleasure  found  in  what  ought  to  be  genuine  homes. 

The  getting  of  a  house  does  not  guarantee  the  possession  of  a 
home ;  it  may  and  it  may  not.  But  the  presence  in  the  house  of  a 
good  housekeeper  does,  for  where  the  physical  welfare  of  a  family  is 
looked  after,  the  mental  and  spiritual  comfort  is  almost  sure  to 
follow.  A  cheerful  kitchen,  for  tlie  children's  sake,  in  the  first 
place — for  they  love  the  kitchen  naturally — should  be   the  earliest 


■38  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

possession,  and  not  many  times  can  it  be  secured  with  the  insufficient 
help  American  housewives  have  to  depend  upon  generally. 

A  way  to  have  a  good  cook  is  to  be  one,  and  the  way  to  make 
home  happy  is  to  have  a  well-supplied  table.  A  humiliating  admis- 
sion this  to  some,  perhaps,  but  the  truth  is  invincible,  and  sooner  or 
later  this  one  asserts  itself. 

Three  well-served  meals  each  day  will,  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances, secure  the  home-happiness  of  almost  any  reasonable  house- 
hold, and  it  certainly  does  establish  the  comfort  of  all. 

The  dining-room  is  the  tell-tale  apartment  of  the  house ;  whatever 
it  is,  so  is  the  parlor,  the  up-stairs  rooms  or  the  kitchen.  Cracked 
dishes,  soiled  covers,  dingy  carpets — these  bespeak  one  kind  of 
housekeeper,  as  neat  napkins,  clean  chairs,  and  tidy  ornaments 
another.  The  dining-room  ought  to  be  the  pleasantest  place  in  the 
house ;  it  is  the  meeting-room  where  the  family  are  expected  to  be 
always  present  at  stated  times,  and  where  the  events  of  the  day  are 
talked  over  while  the  pleasant  business  of  eating  is  being  discussed. 

Dingy  walls  ought  not  to  be  tolerated  in  a  dining-room ;  they  are 
an  eyesore  anywhere,  but  in  this  place  they  are  entirely  out  of  place. 
Tinted  walls  are  preferable  to  papered  ones ;  but  they  cost  more,  and 
are  not  always  to  be  commanded.  If  paper  is  selected,  let  it  be  suited 
to  the  size  and  general  appearance  of  the  room. 

If  the  room  is  low  and  long,  the  walls  should  not  be  papered  at 
all.  Plain  white  ones  increase  the  apparent  size  of  the  apartment, 
and  lighten  it,  wjiile  any  colored  or  figured  covering  detracts  from  the 
desired  effect.  If  the  walls  have  been  papered  before,  and  must  be 
covered  in  the  same  way  again,  choose  a  pale  tint  of  some  preferred 
color,  and  finish  with  a  border  of  a  brilliant  and  darker  shade.  Solid 
colors  are  the  most  suitable  for  a  dining-room,  for  the  reason  that  the 
eye  does  not  weary  of  them  as  it  does  of  figures,  and  because  of  the 
advantage  in  hanging  pictures.  With  a  bright  background,  pictures 
of  almost  any  kind  are  improved  in  appearance,  and  the  general 
effect,  even  with  fine  wall  ornaments,  is  heightened. 

Figured   designs   are  not  adapted  for  the  dining-room,  and  such 


HOME-MAKING    AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT.  39 

paper  always  detracts  from,  rather  than  adds  to,  its  appearance. 
Striped  paper  is  preferable  to  figured,  be  the  latter  never  so  delicate, 
and  panel  paper  is  more  suited  to  such  rooms  than  either.  For  those 
who  prefer  the  darker  patterns  in  paper,  and  the  Eastlake  in  style, 
there  are  numberless  rich  and  beautiful  patterns.  But  for  dining- 
rooms,  the  best  authorities  favor  the  tinted  walls.  The  furniture  of 
a  dining-room  should  be  uniform.  If  of  oak,  then  it  should  be  more 
massive  than  walnut  requires  to  be,  and  it  should  be  more  orna- 
mental. Walnut  demands  a  better  finish  and  more  simplicity  in 
design  than  oak,  while  the  latter  calls  for  more  or  less  additional  up- 
holstery. Chairs  of  oak  are  not  really  desirable  unless  the  seats  are 
cushioned,  while  walnut,  with  cane-seats,  are  pleasant  enough  for  any 
demand.  The  buffet  should  be  a  match  for  the  chairs  and  tables,  and 
an  extra  table  should  always  be  provided  to  stand  in  a  corner  for  the 
reception  of  newspapers ;  otherwise  the  paper  is  put  down  beside  the 
chair  of  the  person  reading,  or  it  is  laid  upon  another,  and  in  either 
case  is  in  the  way.  A  bronze  ornament  for  the  mantel,  and  a  couple, 
not  necessarily  a  pair,  of  vases,  will  be  sufficient  in  the  way  of  small 
articles  of  a  strictly  ornamental  kind.  The  mirror,  if  there  is  room 
for  it,  should  be  put  in  the  dining-room.  If  not,  then  it  should  go  to 
the  sitting-room  up-stairs,  or  the  bedrooms.  The  parlor  is  not  the 
place  for  mirrors,  and  the  better  taste  of  the  American  people  will 
eventually  banish  them  from  its  domain. 

Small  articles  are  not  suitable  for  the  dining-room,  where  there  is 
constant  moving  about  and  likelihood  of  their  being  broken  by  care- 
less servants.  Pictures  are  acceptable,  and  the  number  should  be 
according  to  the  size  of  the  apartment.  Do  not  hang  one  above  an- 
other in  a  dining-room;  it  is  almost  impossible  to  keep  them  dusted 
where  there  are  many.  Fasten  them  with  the  silver  or  gold  wire  now 
so  generally  in  use  ;  there  is  no  comparison  between  it  and  the  old 
worsted  colored  cord  of  other  days  which  was  always  in  danger  of 
being  moth-eaten,  and  which  frayed  out  so  soon.  If  selecting  pic- 
tures for  the  dinincc-room,  fine  engravincjs  will  b^  f\r  more  suitable 
than  ordinary  paintings,  and  a  water-colored  fruit  i)iece  will  give 
sufficient  variety  if  color  is  wanted. 


40  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Let  the  frames  be  plain  and  the  pictures  fine.  Then  for  the  window 
ornamentation,  let  there  be  only  plain  white  shades,  and  have  the 
recess  filled,  if  desired,  with  a  wire  stand  for  a  vine  or  a  plant.  The 
room,  however,  should  be  large  if  this  is  added. 

A  clock  should  not  be  in  the  room,  for  Americans  do  not  require 
to  be  reminded  of  time  at  the  table — they  spend  less  at  it  than  any 
other  civilized  people,  and  there  should  be  present  on  the  table  or 
buffet  the  daily  papers  to  glance  over  if  the  desire  is  felt.  The  room 
ought  to  be  sacred  to  its  special  uses,  and  those  uses  ought  to  be 
eating  and  talking  and  reading.  It  depends  upon  the  size  of  the 
family  as  to  whether  there  will  be  the  latter,  for  young  people  and 
little  children  put  it  quite  out  of  the  question.  On  the  corner  of  the 
buffet  should  be  the  ice-cooler  and  glasses,  if  it  be  summer;  or  the 
china  or  glass  pitcher  if  the  weather  be  cold.  A  silver  pitcher  is  too 
suggestive  of  cold  drink  to  be  as  agreeable  as  a  glass  one  in  winter, 
and  water  is  sufnciently  cold  in  the  latter,  for  the  ice  does  not  melt 
so  speedily. 

A  buffet  is  always  a  needed  piece  of  furniture  in  a  dining-room, 
and  it  should  be  suitably  furnished.  The  glasses  usually  stand  upon 
it,  and  also  the  tea-set  of  silv^er  or  china,  as  the  case  may  be.  Pretty 
articles  of  glass,  such  as  the  celery-stand,  the  fruit-dish  and  the  cake- 
stand  of  silver  (the  latter  term  is  applied  for  courtesy's  sake,  plated- 
ware  being  used  as  a  rule)  may  be  set  upon  it,  and  the  pretty  treasure 
of  faience  or  majolica  ware  has  its  place  in  the  collection.  The  plate 
upon  the  buffet  should  be  well  polished,  for  its  condition  is  a  certain 
indication  of  a  well-managed  or  an  ill-managed  household. 

In  regard  to  silver  generally,  it  should  be  remembered  that  it  is 
impossible  to  make  greasy  silver  take  a  polish,  and  that,  as  spoons 
and  forks  in  daily  use  are  continually  in  contact  with  grease,  they 
must  require  careful  washing  to  remove  it. 

The  lack  of  a  general  reception-room  in  a  home  is  always  greatly 
felt  by  the  growing  members  of  the  family  as  well  as  by  their  elders. 
Children  like  some  place  to  have  their  friends,  as  well  a  retreat 
when  the  parlors  are  occupied,  and  the  inclination  for  social  compan- 


HOME-MAKING     AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT.  4I 

ionship  is  stronger  than  sleep  or  a  walk,  and  they  ought  to  have  it.  A 
sitting-room  should  have  solid  attractions  in  the  form  of  easy-chairs, 
sofa-lounges  and  ornaments.  All  the  knick-knacks  ought  to  be 
gathered  there,  and  the  room  made  as  pretty  as  variety  and  good 
taste  can  make  it.  The  latest  effort  of  the  children's  crayon-drawings 
should  be  at  hand,  and  wax-flowers  and  dried  leaves  made  by  the 
young  folk  should  be  kept  there.  Books  and  pictures,  work-basket 
and  newspapers — all  these,  and  more  beside ;  a  stand  for  plants  and  a 
bird,  or,  better  still,  a  music-box. 

If  the  house  is  not  provided  with  a  library,  there  should  be  a 
writing-desk  or  a  table,  with  all  the  materials  for  writing,  and  any 
articles  of  statuary  or  vcrtu  should  find  their  way  to  this  cosy  nook. 
The  clock  should  be  here,  and  also  the  brackets  and  wall-pockets 
that  look  so  out  of  taste  in  a  parlor  and  are  yet  too  pretty  to  consign 
to  the  up-stairs  bed-rooms. 

A  wicker  rocking-chair,  a  Shaker  sewing-chair  and  upholstered 
easy-chairs  are  delightful  acquisitions  to  this  gathering-place  of  the 
family ;  and,  if  there  is  a  spare  mirror  about  the  house,  it  will  be  in 
keeping  with  the  variety  of  things  in  the  sitting-room.  The  family 
Bible  should  be  present,  the  photograph  albums,  and  all  the  other 
albums  that  usually  cumber  the  small  tables  in  the  parlor.  A  drop- 
light  and  stand,  with  shade,  should  be  there,  to  dp  duty  in  the  even- 
ing, and  whatever  else  that  is  desired  can  be  put  in  this  brightest  and 
best  of  all  the  rooms  of  the  house.  Here  should  hang  the  children's 
photographs,  the  family  pictures,  unless  the  latter  are  costly  por- 
traits, and  somewhere  in  the  room  should  be  a  calendar. 

As  may  be  judged,  the  notion  entertained  of  a  general  sitting-roorn 
is  that  the  things  which  ought  not  to  be  in  other  rooms  ought  to  be 
here,  and  the  many  family  valuables  in  the  shape  of  Bibles,  portraits, 
albums  and  the  like,  which  are  usually  to  be  seen  in  parlors,  should 
be  transferred  to  a  room  more  especially  devoted  to  home-use.  If 
such  a  room  was  saved  out  of  the  house,  it  would  repay  the  depri- 
vation suffered  for  it,  and  there  would  always  be  a  parlor  for  the 
family. 


• 


42  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

The  reason  so  many  children  are  ill-behaved  in  the  presence  of 
visitors  is  because  they  are  unused  to  their  own  parlors,  and  they  are 
naturally  anxious  to  see  and  handle  whatever  is  to  be  seen  and 
handled  when  the  opportunity  offers.  The  advantage,  too,  of  having 
a  sitting-room  is  that,  unless  it  is  desired,  formal  guests  need  not  have 
before  their  eyes  so  much  that  exhibits  the  inner  side  of  the  home  life. 
Sometimes  it  is  not  pleasant  they  should.  Not  always,  perhaps, 
do  visitors  suffer  their  curiosity  to  betray  them  into  an  examination 
of  their  hostess'  belongings ;  but  one  lady  whose  mistrust  of  her 
guests  always  led  her  to  keep  the  servant  .standing  in  the  room  while 
she  was  preparing  to  come  down,  might  have  been  paralleled  many 
times  over. 

Drawing-rooms  proper  should  be  fine  and  severely  plain,  and 
handsome  parlors  are  impaired  rather  than  improved  by  the  addition 
of  useless  ornaments. 

For  sitting-rooms,  there  should  be  nothing  too  good  for  daily 
usage.  The  carpet  should  be  of  any  quality  deemed  most  suitable ; 
but  the  figures,  whether  it  be  of  Brussels  or  three-ply,  should  be 
small  and  subdued  in  color.  Look  well  to  the  selection  of  the 
carpet,  for  upon  its  beauty  and  worth  depends  much  of  the  enjoyment 
of  the  room.  Have  no  uniformity  in  the  arrangement  of  furniture, 
and  still  less  in  ,its  pattern.  Choose  useful  things  and  pleas- 
ing ones,  but  sets  of  furniture  should  be  avoided.  It  is  almost  tor- 
ture  to  see  rows  of  chairs  and  sofas  to  match  in  the  parlor  ;  in  this 
room  of  utility  and  comfort  let  there  be  genuine  variety — a  variety 
born  of  the  individuality  of  tastes  in  the  house  and  not  of  a  careful 
selection  of  oddities.  A  little  cabinet  of  shells,  or  collections  of  any- 
thing that  some  member  of  the  family  may  delight  in  arranging,  is  a 
pretty  treasure  in  a  home,  and  so  also  are  small  collections  of  books 
kept  separate  and  apart,  and  representing  the  peculiar  bent  of  mind 
of  some  home-member. 

Persons  interested  in  having  acquaintance  with  the  many  trivial 
things  a  knowledge  of  which  will  add  to  the  beautifying  of  home  will 
find  the  following  directions  of  service.     After  all,  it  is  the  little  things 


HOME-MAKING    AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT.  43 

of  home-life  that  are  to  be  thoroughly  well  performed,  if  domestic 
duties  are  to  be  elevated  or  made  pleasant,  and  the  safest  and  best 
way  to  gather  them  is  to  take  them  in  fragments,  and  thus  little  by 
little  master  the  details  of  what  separately  are  very  simple  fend  easy 
to  master. 

'  Home  soon  owns  home-keepers,  unless  they  are  diligent  in  sim- 
plifying and  mastering  the  detail  duties  required  of  them.  Multi- 
tudinous cares  sap  the  early  bloom  and  health  of  women,  and  to 
none  more  than  housekeeping  is  to  be  attributed  the  over-taxing 
of  which  they  complain.  They  make  many  of  their  cares  themselves, 
but,  all  the  same,  they  are  cares,  and  they  deplete  the  strength  of 
the  body  and  the  will-power,  as  much  as  though  they  were  sent  by 
heaven  and  designed  for  some  good. 

In  the  matter  of  carpets,  for  instance,  the  home  is  often  adorned  at 
the  expense  of  comfort,  convenience,  and  health,  and  what  ought  to 
be  a  pleasure  is,  in  fact,  a  tax  and  a  continual  source  of  anxiety.  To 
parlor  carpets  are  indirectly  due  much  of  the  fretfulness,  peevishness 
and  discontent  exhibited  in  the  family.  Strong  charges  these,  but 
true  and  worthy  of  acceptance,  when  it  is  remembered  how  essential 
the  parlor  is  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  old  and  the  young  in  the  home. 
"  Too  good  to  be  used  "  is  usually  the  imaginary  label  affixed  to  the 
floor-covering  in  the  best  room,  and  only  in  the  most  careful  way'  it 
is  used,  and  then  it  is  most  frequently  for  the  benefit  of  strangers. 
The  colors  are  too  bright,  the  quality  too  good,  the  cost  too  much  for 
ordinary  use,  and  its  preservation  is  made  one  of  the  first  duties  of  all 
in  the  home.  From  the  hour  that  it  is  bought,  it  becomes  master  of 
the  home,  and  against  its  tyranny  children  not  only  rebel  at  the  time, 
but  carry  in  memory  all  through  life,  revengeful  thoughts  of  "  that 
parlor  carpet." 

Some  people  cease  to  be  free  the  moment  they  buy  carpets  or 
furniture.  From  that  hour  their  independence  is  gone,  and  instead 
of  their  possessing  them,  they  own  their  owners.  The  Shakers,  wise 
people,  refuse  to  be  under  the  dominion  of  upholstery,  and,  on 
the   ground  of  cleanliness,  decline  to    tolerate   carpets   in   the  form 


44  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

others  use  them.  They  will  not  be  the  slaves  of  the  inanimate  things 
in  their  houses,  and  they  marvel  at  the  abject  servitude  of  the  world's 
people  in  this  regard.  They  marvel,  too,  at  the  untidiness  common 
in  homeS,  and  at  the  perfect  acquiescence  of  the  majority  of  women, 
in  the  semi-clean  state  in  which  their  houses  are  kept.  They  go  to 
an  extreme,  perhaps,  but  if  they  do,  their  reward  is  more  physical 
comfort  than  even  the  wealthy  can  possess  themselves  of. 

They  will  not  hang  pictures  on  their  walls  because  dust  accumu- 
lates too  readily,  and  the  first  principle  of  their  religion  is  cleanliness. 
With  them,  this  cardinal  virtue  is  really  next  to  godliness. 

Pictures  put  on  the  walls  for  the  pleasure  of  beholders,  ought  to  be 
kept  scrupulously  clean,  and  if  they  cannot  be,  the  bare  walls  are 
preferable.  As  with  pictures,  so  with  carpets ;  and  since  the  latter 
are  so  hard  to  keep  clean,  the  quality  ought  to  be  carefully  con- 
sidered in  buying  them. 

Carpets  were  first  used  in  little  squares,  and  the  people  of  the  East, 
who  had  no  chairs,  invented  them  to  sit  upon.  They  were  made  of 
plaited  rushes,  and  when  used  a  certain  length  of  time,  were  thrown 
aside.  Hence  it  would  seem  that  their  inventors  originally  intended 
them  only  for  temporary  use,  and  that  as  they  could  not  be  kept  clean, 
or  washed  when  they  were  soiled,  they  were  discarded;  two  simple 
rules  which  should  remind  moderns  that,  if  they  are  more  cunning  in 
handicraft  than  were  their  ancestors,  they  are  not  more  neat. 

If  our  floors  were  what  they  should  be,  we  would  not  be  confined 
to  carpets  so  exclusively  as  we  are.  Women,  who  ought  really  to 
have  the  most  to  say  about  house-building,  have  the  least,  and  floors 
and  closets,  the  two  most  important  features  in  houses,  do  not  receive 
the  consideration  that  is  their  due,  for  men  do  not  realize  the  defects 
in  these  things  always,  and  builders  do  not  trouble  to  give  better 
work  than  is  required.  The  sight  of  a  beautifully  even  and  smooth 
floor,  accurately  laid  and  perfectly  finished,  is  one  worth  seeing,  but 
it  is  rare  to  eyes  accustomed  to  even  the  finest  of  houses.  We  make 
much  of  our  looms  and  our  manufactures  ;  and  show  their  produc- 
tions in  all  portions  of  the  house,  but  the  oak  and  the  cedar,  the 


HOME-MAKING    AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT.  45 

hickory  and  the  walnut  woods  that  are  to  be  had  in  such  profusion  in 
this  country,  are  not  generally  utilized  in  our  flooring,  and  not 
dreamed  of  as  being  more  desirable  than  woollen  carpets. 

If  we  cannot  have  Eastern  floors  of  rare  woods,  we  can  have 
smooth  ones,  fit  to  put  carpets  over,  and  we  ought  to  demand  that 
they  shall  be  a  protection  for  them,  rather  than  what  they  are — one 
of  the  most  destructive  elements  against  which  they  contend  but  a 
short  time  before  they  wear  out. 

In  buying  carpets,  choose  for  every  room  in  the  house,  small  pat- 
terns— Persian  designs,  or  something  as  admirable  in  American  styles. 
Get  oak  color,  and  with  a  blue  border,  for  one  room,  and  a  serviceable 
shade  of  brown,  with  a  crimson  border  about  it,  for  another;  or, 
buy  a  mixed  pattern  and  the  half-yard  deep  borders  made  specially 
for  it. 

Velvet  used  to  be  preferred  to  all  other  kinds  of  carpets,  but  the 
popular  voice  is  in  favor  of  English  body  Brussels,  or  some  of  the 
other  varieties  of  lighter  carpets.  Neutral  tints  last  longest,  and 
patterns  should  be  small.  The  old-time  flower-beds  that  were  once 
laid  out  on  carpets,  and  composed  of  blossoms  of  every  kind,  are 
relegated  to  the  garret  or  the  auction-room.  The  simpler  st\dcs  are 
growing  in  favor,  and  those  who  know  of  the  beauty  of  quiet  colors, 
and  the  restfulness  that  a  tasty  carpet  can  give,  select  such  carpets 
for  their  homes.  Cheap  carpets  are  costly,  since  they  have  to  be 
renewed  so  often,  and  are,  when  at  their  best,  only  dust  catchers  !  A 
good  three-ply  Kidderminster  or  an  English  Brussels  will  give  most 
satisfaction  for  a  dining-room,  sleeping  apartment  or  room. 

Carpet  designs  are  handsomer  now  than  ever  before,  and  there  is 
no  need  for  a  homely  pattern  to  find  its  way  into  any  home.  Care 
in  their  preservation  will  guarantee  a  long  service,  and  by  care  is 
meant  intelligence  in  cleaning  and  dusting  them,  and  in  the  manner 
in  which  they  are  laid.  No  carpet  ought  to  cover  the  entire  floor. 
An  inch,  if  not  more,  of  space  should  be  left  all  round  the  room,  so 
that  the  corners  can  be  kept  clean,  and  the  carpet  easily  taken  up. 
They  should  be  carefully  fastened  down  with  tacks  that  have  suffi- 


46  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

c«ent  body  to  hold  and  not  tear  the  fabric,  and  the  stretching  process, 
save  in  a  moderate  degree,  should  not  be  indulged  in  because  it  ruins 
a  carpet.  Brown  paper  or  newspapers  are  better  protectors  against  the 
floor  under  carpets  than  the  generality  of  paddings  sold  for  that  pur- 
pose ;  and  no  carpet  ought  to  remain  on  the  floor  long  enough  to 
wear  these  out.  Dust  in  a  carpet  is  likely  to  do  more  harm  than  to 
keep  a  duster  in  use;  weak  lungs  have  no  greater  enemies. 

To  sweep  a  carpet  properly  requires  judgment,  and,  if  there  is 
much  dust  to  be  taken  out  of  it,  tea-leaves  or  bran  or  salt  should  be 
slightly  dampened  and  scattered  over  it.  Afterward,  the  carpet 
should  be  wiped  off  with  a  clean  silk  or  cotton  dust-cloth.  The 
sweeping  should  never  be  done  against  the  grain — and  the  short,  fierce 
strokes  of  an  inexperienced  sweeper  only  injure  and  do  not  clean  a 
carpet.  A  long  movement  of  the  arm  with  the  broom,  holding  the 
broom  down  to  the  floor,  when  the  length  is  a  long  reach,  will 
remove  the  dust  and  yet  not  throw  it  in  the  air,  thus  making  double 
work.  A  broom  used  on  a  carpet  should  never  be  taken  to  sweep  any 
other  kind  of  floor.  When  not  in  use,  they  should  be  hung  upon  a 
nail  by  a  string  put  through  the  handle  for  the  purpose.  Servants 
rarely  take  the  interest  in  carpets  that  the  mistress  does  ;  and  since 
it  is  poor  economy  to  hire  a  servant  to  take  the  exercise  which  she 
requires,  housekeepers,  as  far  as  possible,  should  do  their  own  sweep- 
ing. This  is  a  radical  doctrine,  but  the  exercise  is  excellent,  and  it  is 
the  kind  that  the  majority  of  women  sadly  need. 

To  so  adorn  a  window  that  it  shall  be  an  improvement  to  a 
room,  and  a  pleasing  feature  of  the  exterior  view  of  the  house,  is  an 
achievement  all  too  rarely  accomplished.  In  the  majority  of  homes 
a  white  shade  is  considered  sufficient  finish  for  the  up-stairs  windows, 
and  the  surplus  adornments  are  reserved  for  the  parlor,  and  when 
this  is  accomplished  the  windows  are  said  to  be  decorated.  Lace 
curtains  are  the  chosen  drapery  for  windows,  and  these  are  now 
manufactured  in  such  varied  qualities  that  the  cottage  of  the  hum- 
blest mechanic  can  have  its  pretty  muslin  or  Nottingham  curtains, 
though  the  latter,   unless  fine,  are  not  desirable,  even  in  cottages. 


HOME-MAKING    AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT.  4/ 

Neither,  again,  are  lambrequins,  the  homeliest  of  all  window 
ornaments  that  have  been  devised.  They  do  not  serve  the  pur- 
poses of  a  curtain,  nor  add  to  the  warmth  or  shading  of  the  room, 
and  they  do  not  give  the  effect  of  drapery,  since  they  are  at  the 
top  of  the  window  and  look  for  all  the  world  as  though  nec(?ssity 
had  compelled  the  rejection  of  their  nether  extremities — short 
where  they  should  be  long,  plain  where  they  should  be  gathered 
in  folds.  Lambrequins  are  not  decorative,  and,  save  in  bed-rooms, 
where  they  can  be  made  of  some  light,  bright-colored  material,  and 
be  a  match  for  other  portions  of  the  furniture,  they  arc  not  desirable. 
Farprettier  than  they  are  the  unbleached  muslin  curtains,  trimmed 
with  bands  of  colored  s^lesia,  and  hung  on  rods  with  pretty  walnut 
or  brass  rings.  For  bed-rooms  these  latter  curtains  are  admirable, 
serving  the  purpose  for  which  a  curtain  is  intended,  and  adding  to 
the  general  attractions  of  an  apartment. 

Where  the  rooms  are  all  to  be  furnished  differently,  these  curtains 
are  extremely  adaptable,  the  borderii\g  not  showing  on  the  under  side, 
and  having  from  the  street  the  same  general  appearance.  This  fact 
should  be  borne  in  mind  in  furnishing  windows,  for  where  curtains 
vary  much  the  external  effect  is  not  pleasing.  Few  things  set  off  a 
house  more  than  careful  attention  to  the  cleanliness  and  decoration 
of  its  windows,  and  the  true  secret  of  success  in  both  these  desirable 
ends  is  found  in  simple  furnishing.  A  window  which  is  too  heavily 
draped  is  not  likely  to  be  kept  thoroughly  neat,  and  a  room  darkened 
by  a  surplus  of  drapery  is  unhealthy.  Windows  should  be  made 
beautiful  by  carefully  considering  the  uses  which  they  are  to  serve, 
and  this  is  the  only  way  to  make  and  keep  them  attractive.  If  they 
are  merely  to  be  used  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  a  reception-room  or 
parlor,  they  may  be  more  draped  than  when  they  are  to  serve  as  a 
place  of  entertainment  and  a  place  of  observation  for  the  occupant 
of  a  room.  In  order  to  make  them  as  acceptable  for  the  latter  pur- 
pose, all  hindrances  in  the  way  of  curtains  should  be  ignored,  and  a 
simple  shade  should  be  used,  or  curtains  of  a  light  kind,  that  can  be 
easily  removed. 


48  TPiE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

As  a  rule,  we  do  not  err  in  over-decoration ;  the  fault  is  the  other 
way ;  and  windows  are  the  barest  portions  of  the  room  many  times 
where  they  ought  to  be  the  most  adorned.  Flowers,  more  than 
anything  else,  add  to  the  beauty  of  windows,  and  nothing  is  easier 
of  possession  than  a  few  vines  or  growing  plants. 

Hanging-baskets  decorate,  but  these  are  seen  only  from  within,, 
and  the  heat  from  the  gas  soon  destroys  the  beauty  of  flowers  kept 
in  the  room.  Window-gardens  proper  are  far  more  preferable,  and 
these  can  be  made  without  half  the  cost  of  lace  curtains,  and  will 
give  double  the  amount  of  pleasure. 

The  objection  to  them — that  they  require  to  be  attended  to — will 
not  hold  good  when  it  is  remembered  how  much  time  is  spent  in 
keeping  draperies  clean  and  free  from  dust.  But  the  genuine  love 
which  so  many  persons  feel  for  flowers  will  prevent  them  from  looking 
upon  their  careful  nurture  as  a  trouble,  and,  for  those  who  will  tend 
them,  their  beauty  is  an  ever-abundant  recompense. 

Ferneries  are  often  successfully  planted  in  windows  with  a  southern 
exposure,  and,  if  there  is  a  suitable  window  of  the  ordinary  kind,  this 
is  easily  accomplished.  The  one  requisite  for  ferns  is  shade,  and 
hence  they  are  not  really  so  handsome  for  bay-windows  as  are 
blossoming  plants.  They  are  better  as  square-window  decorations, 
and  when  they  are  properly  arranged  the  effect  is  charming. 

A  pretty  window  conservatory  can  be  made  at  a  comparatively 
inexpensive  cost  by  having  a  double  sash  united  to  the  window  casing 
with  glass  sides.  This  sash  is  best  made  in  one  piece,  and  the 
proper  v^entilation  can  be  secured  through  a  movable  pane. 

If  the  conservatoiy  is  to  be  put  in  a  room  where  there  are  three 
windows,  the  centre  one  vv^ill  generally  serve  the  purpose.  The 
frame  can  be  either  square  or  oval,  and  the  glass  should  be  of  the 
clearest  quality,  and  as  thick  as  possible. 

The  top  may  be  of  wood  or  glass,  the  eaves  of  the  house  pro- 
tecting it  sufficiently  in  either  case.  If  the  space  is  narrow,  only 
vines,  such  as  the  Madeira  or  cypress,  should  be  planted  in  the 
enclosure,  and  these  should  be  placed  in  a  box  made  to  fit  perfectly. 


HOME-MAKING    AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT. 


49 


It  is  best  to  consult  a  florist  in  the  arrangement  and  selection  of 
plants  for  such  conservatories,  and  only  such  flowers  should  be 
chosen  as  will  be  most  handy. 

Sometimes  the  outside  sash  is  made  to  serve  the  one  purpose,  and 
the  inside  one  is  removed.  This  is  a  prettier  mode  of  arranging  the 
window,  and  the  effect  within  is  far  better.  A  competent  carpenter 
can  arrange  these  conservatories,  and  for  winter  gardening  they  are 
thoroughly  satisfactory  and  practical. 

For  summer,  the  outside  shutters  necessitate  the  removal  of  flowers 
from  the  window ;  but  where  an  awning  is  used  in  place  of  shutters, 
low  stands  can  be  arranged  in  the  windows.  The  handsomest  win- 
dows seen  in  the  cities  are  those  which  have  the  awnings  and  the 
flowers,  and  one  thus  arranged  cannot  be  improved  upon.  Brackets 
on  the  sides  of  windows,  holding  plants,  add  greatly  to  the  beauty  of 
a  home. 

All  windows  should  have  an  upper  and  lower  pane  of  glass  that 
can  be  turned  on  a  pivot,  in  order  to  ventilate  the  room ;  and  those 
who  have  ever  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  an  arrangement  of  this 
kind  would  scarcely  try  to  put  up  with  the  old  and  disagreeable 
mode  of  opening  the  entire  window  every  time  a  supply  of  fresh  air 
was  desired.  The  glass  is  framed  in  half  the  woodwork  of  the 
ordinary  frame,  and  it  either  turns  on  a  pivot  or  is  hung  on  hinges. 
Either  way  answers  the  purpose,  which  is  to  give  ventilation  in  winter 
without  opening  the  entire  window,  and  exposing  occupants  to  strong 
draughts  of  air. 

An  exquisite  transparency  for  windows  may  be  made  by  arranging 
pressed  ferns,  grasses,  and  autumn  leaves  on  a  pane  of  window  glass, 
laying  another  pane  of  the  same  size  over  it,  and  binding  the  edge 
with  ribbon,  leaving  the  group  imprisoned  between.  Use  gum 
tragacanth  in  putting  on  the  binding.  It  is  well  to  secure  a  narrow* 
strip  of  paper  under  the  ribbon.  The  binding  should  be  gummed  all 
around  the  edge  of  the  first  pane,  and  dried  before  the  leaves,  ferns, 
etc.,  are  arranged ;  then  it  can  be  neatly  folded  over  the  second  pane 
without  difficulty.  To  form  the  loop  for  hanging  the  transparency, 
4 


50  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

paste  a  binding  of  galloon  along  the  edges,  leaving  a  two-inch  loop 
free  in  the  centre,  afterwards  to  be  pulled  through  a  little  slip  in  the 
final  binding.  These  transparencies  may  be  either  hung  before  a 
window,  or,  if  preferred,  secured  against  a  pane  in  the  sash. 

Windows,  to  be  well  cleaned,  should  be  washed  with  clear  water 
and  whiting,  and  the  latter  should  be  allowed  to  dry  thoroughly 
before  it  is  rubbed  off  A  beautiful  polish  is  thus  secured  for  the 
glass,  and  windows  so  washed  retain  their  lustre  longer  than  do  those 
cleaned  with  mops  and  soapsuds.  Very  little  water  is  required  to 
polish  a  window,  if  it  is  properly  done,  but  care  and  time  is  required. 

Window-screens  of  wire,  fastened  in  the  lower  sash  or  frames,  is 
an  excellent  protection  against  flies  and  dust,  and  are  only  objection- 
able on  the  score  of  appearances  in  the  opinion  of  some  persons. 

Too  many  persons  are  apt  to  think,  when  a  set  of  furniture  and  a 
new  carpet  are  put  into  the  best  room,  that  they  have  a  parlor.  In 
one  sense  they  have,  in  another  they  have  not.  Parlors,  like  all  other 
rooms,  to  be  really  what  they  ought  to  be,  should  be  individual,  and 
the  presence  there  of  pretty  articles  indicative  of  the  taste  of  the 
owner  is  absolutely  essential  to  make  them  so.  The  true  home-lover 
is  one  who  very  gradually  and  cautiously  collects  treasures  for  it. 

No  greater  error  can  be  made  than  to  hurry  this  pleasantest  of 
all  pastimes,  and  it  should  be  the  wisdom  of  all  house-furnishers  to 
go  about  it  with  the  utmost  care.  Pictures  and  rare  ornaments  can 
only  be  added  slowly,  unless  there  is  wealth,  and  the  wealthy  have 
none  of  the  sweeter  pleasures  that  come  from  the  careful  handling 
of  small  amounts  which  are  required  to  do  duty  in  such  a  variety  of 
ways.  Not  the  costly  things  are  always  the  most  desirable ;  but  the 
available  and  the  useful  ones  are,  for  the  most  part,  costly,  and  the 
treasure-seeker  who  knows  how  to  combine  all  these  requisites  in 
her  purchases  is  fortunate.  But  so  many  women  err  in  choosing 
hastily,  and  being  biased  in  their  judgment  by  the  suggestions  of 
those  with  whom  they  are  dealing,  that  hints  as  to  what  is  advisable 
for  the  average  purse  may  aid  the   new  beginner  in  the  perilous 


undertaking:  of  a  first  furnishi 


*fc> 


ng. 


HOME-MAKING    AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT.  5! 

In  the  matter  of  window  drapery  do  not  mistake  in  the  selection 
cf  cheap,  showy  lace.  Buy  muslin  curtains  rather  than  the  large- 
patterned  Nottingham  and  other  poor  material.  And,  if  the  best 
guipure  or  Flanders  lace  cannot  be  bought  to  trim  them,  leave  them 
plain,  or  finish  them  with  the  prettily-fluted  ruffles  that  give  such  a 
pretty  effect.  Sometimes  a  puffing  is  added  in  connection  with  the 
ruffle,  and  in  this  is  not  unfrequently  run  a  pretty  blue  or  pink  cam- 
bric ribbon,  cut  the  right  width  and  carefully  inserted.  The  curtains 
are  looped  back  with  ribbon  to  match  the  color  used  in  the  puffings, 
and  then  they  give  a  refined  as  well  as  a  bright  and  fresh  effect  to 
a  parlor  or  sitting-room.  Under  these  curtains  should  always  be 
white  or  colored  shades,  and  the  former  should  be  fastened  on  light 
wood,  or  gilt  bars  and  rings,  as  will  best  suit  the  furniture  of  the 
room. 

If  the  mantel  is  covered,  the  table  should  be,  particularly  where 
the  latter  is  of  marble,  for  marble  in  parlor  furniture  is  well  nigh 
abandoned,  and  if  uniformity  is  desirable,  the  covers  in  each  instance 
should  match  the  curtains  or  contrast  well  with  them. 

In  the  matter  of  mantel  ornaments  the  fault  is  usually  found  in 
overcrowding.  There  is  too  much  on  the  mantel  and  above  it  to  be 
tasteful,  and  the  articles  have  the  appearance  of  being  on  display 
themselves,  rather  than  adding  to  the  beauty  of  the  room  in  which 
they  are  placed.  The  folly  of  overcrowding  need  not  be  enlarged 
upon ;  it  is  the  getting  of  harmonious  articles  that  concerns  us  most 
now,  and  if  the  advice  about  buying  leisurely  is  followed,  this  mis- 
take will  not  be  made. 

In  regard  to  having  books  in  a  parlor,  even  where  there  is  but  one 
company-room,  much  diversity  of  opinion  Is  expressed.  The  effort 
of  every  household  ought  to  be  to  gather  books  enough  for  a  book- 
case of  some  kind,  even  if  it  consists  of  only  a  few  pine  shelves,  and 
these  ought  always  to  be  in  the  family  or  sitting-room,  where  they 
can  be  in  frequent  use,  and  not  be  borrowed  indiscriminately.  Visit- 
ors not  unfrequently  borrow  a  book  because  they  see  it,  and  books 
should  not  fall  into  such  hands. 


52  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

As  nearly  every  lady  of  the  house  desires  to  do  as  much  in  the 
way  of  furnishing  herself  as  is  possible,  the  following  directions  for 
making  various  articles  are  given,  some  of  which  are  designed  for 
parlor  ornamentation,  while  others  are  of  a  more  general  character 
and  suitable  as  hints  to  those  desiring  to  improve  articles  already 
supplied. 

A  pretty  folding  screen    of  home    manufacture  is  made  with  a 
foundation  of  black  glazed  paper,  and  it  must  come  up  to  the  edge 
of  the  screen,  so  as  to  leave  no  place   uncovered.     The  pictures 
should  be  carefully  cut  out  and  arranged  upon  the  surface,  only  they 
should  be  pinned  on  before  being  fixed,  that  the  effect  may  be  seen. 
Some  people  arrange  the  pictures  one  over  the  other,  so  as  almost 
to  hide  the  foundation ;    but  pictures  look    far  better  placed  sepa- 
rately, only  they  must  be  carefully  selected.     It  is  best  to  have  a 
large   one  in   the  centre  of  the  panel,  and  smaller  ones  arranged 
round  it,  and  colored  pictures  should   always  be  preferred  to  the 
prints.     They   should   be  fixed  to  the  foundation  with  starch,  and 
care  must  be  taken  in  making  it  that  no  lumps  are  left  in  it,  or  they 
will  get  under  the  pictures  and  remain  there.     There  is  nothing  so 
suitable   for  the  bordering  of  a-  screen   as   stamped   leather.      This 
should  be  about  an  inch  and  a  half  in  width,  and  scalloped  round  the 
edge,  with  a  brass  headed  nail  placed  in  each  scallop.     Maroon  or 
green  leather  are  the  colors  that  look  best  with  the  pictures,  and,  of 
course,  this  bordering  must  not  be  put  on  the  screen  until  it  has 
been  varnished  and  has  become  quite  dry. 

Old  furniture  re-covered  in  cretonne  often  makes  the  most  com- 
fortable and  desirable  of  articles.  Some  housekeepers  can,  with  the 
aid  of  a  good  cutter,  upholster  their  own  furniture;  but  it  is  more 
economical  to  have  the  work  done  by  an  artist.  The  best  twilled 
cretonne  is  the  cheapest  for  sets  of  furniture,  but  where  only  one  or 
two  articles  are  to  be  covered,  the  smooth  and  less  costly  kind  can 
be  made  to  answer  admirably.  Irish  tapestry  is  preferred  by  many 
to  cretonne,  and  the  difference  in  cost  is  so  little  that  the  choice  can 
be  left  to  one's  taste. 


HOME-MAKING    AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT.  53 

Exquisite  colors  are  offered  in  cretonnes,  and  there  are  many 
pretty  and  dainty  ways  of  using  it  to  advantage,  in  re-covering  sofa- 
pillows,  trimming  mantels  and  wall  brackets,  and  in  applique  work 
for  tidies. 

A  border  for  a  mantel-piece  always  repays  one,  and,  when  made 
of  macreme  lace,  is  very  showy.  It  should  be  made  up  over  either 
cloth  or  velvet,  to  suit  the  taste  of  the  maker,  and  the  Vandykes  of 
the  velvet  should  be  about  an  inch,  or  a  little  deeper,  beyond  the 
lace.  These  pretty  articles  of  adornment  are  made  up  of  a  variety 
of  materials,  most  frequently  in  cloth,  but  for  a  parlor-mantel,  are 
most  elegant  composed  of  macreme  lace  and  velvet  or  plain  plush. 

The  drawing-room  fire-place  should  always  be  concealed  in  sum- 
mer, for  it  is  rarely  handsome  or  pleasing  to  look  at,  and  one  of  the 
most  successful  ways  for  doing  this  is  to  arrange  silk  curtains 
of  a  color  to  accord  with  the  prevailing  shade  of  the  furniture  of  the 
room.  These  curtains  should  be  edged  on  each  side  with  fringe  or 
lace,  and  then  looped  up  with  ribbon  bows.  This  is  a  great  improve- 
ment over  the  ordinary  paper  screen  or  iron  front,  and  if  the  interior 
is  neatly  papered  it  will  be  a  feature  of  the  room. 

Unbleached  cotton  and  bunting  are  both  much  used  for  curtains. 
They  are  bordered  with  one  broad,  or  two  or  three  narrow  rows  of 
pink,  blue  or  crimson  silesia.  For  bed-rooms  the  silesia  is  more 
suitable  than  lace,  but  unless  care  is  used  the  colors  will  fade,  partic- 
ularly if  the  sunlight  is  admitted,  as  it  ought  to  be  in  all  rooms. 
Turkey-red  silesia  wears  the  best,  but  those  desiring  the  pale  rose- 
color  or  blue,  which  is  a  far  handsomer  trimming  for  spring  or  sum- 
mer curtains,  can  renew  it  without  much  trouble  if  it  does  fade. 
Rings  and  rods  for  these  curtains  can  be  made  by  any  carpenter,  o{ 
stained  pine  or  of  walnut.  The  latter  are  the  handsomest  if  not  the 
most  economical. 

The  time  spent  in  making  trash  in  the  way  of  so-called  fancy 
articles  is  immense,  and  the  homes  made  unattractive  with  the 
varieties  of  tidies,  mats,  foot-rests,  rugs,  and  other  fancy  work,  ate 
far   too    numerous.     The    money   taken   up   in   such    purchases    is 


54  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

scarcely  less  in  amount  where  the  articles  are  purchased  ready- 
made  than  where  the  materials  are  purchased  and  the  work  done  at 
home.  The  work-basket  is  filled  with  crewels  and  sticks  and 
crochet-pins,  and  .there  is  a  continual  reminder  of  valuable  hours  spent 
in  worse  than  idleness  in  many  homes  where  there  are  young  or 
middle-aged  people.  Old  people  knit,  and  sensible  articles  of  cloth- 
ing are  the  result  of  their  handiwork.  Young  people  make  anatomi- 
cal curiosities  in  the  shape  of  animals  and  insects,  and  create 
arabesque  designs  in  the  most  unnatural  way  imaginable. 

Where  the  fancy  for  trifles  is  not  indulged  in  because  of  the  ab- 
sorption of  time  in  some  other  direction,  the  sewing-basket  too  fre- 
quently gives  evidence  of  the  fact  that  one  form  of  fancy-work  has 
taken  the  place  of  the  other,  and  that  the  substitute  is  of  no  more 
real  necessity  than  the  first  article. 

The  work-basket  can  be,  and  is  oftentimes,  one  of  the  most  dispirit- 
ing objects  in  life  to  a  woman  of  mistaken  views  regarding  dress.  It 
can  be  so  filled  with  ruffles  and  flounces,  and  frills  and  tucks,  that 
existence  seems  a  long  season  of  hems  and  gathers  and  plaits,  and 
by  the  time  the  garments  are  completed  the  spirits  are  depressed,  and 
the  necessity  for  greater  effort  discourages  the  tired  devotee. 

The  price  paid  for  finery  by  too  many  of  the  sex  is  dyspepsia. 
They  sacrifice  animation  and  good  nature  for  elaborately  made  cloth- 
ing, and,  if  they  knew  it,  they  pay  a  yet  greater  cost,  for,  besides  the 
loss  of  good  health,  there  is  the  disquiet  of  heart,  the  irritability  of 
mind  and  the  general  peevishness  that  accompanies  all  exhaustion. 

It  does  seem  a  pity  that  the  work-basket  should  be  an  evil  genius 
in  a  home,  when  it  ought  to  be  woman's  best  friend,  and  the  best 
solace  of  many  an  hour  of  life. 

Work  is  inspiring  where  there  is  not  too  much  of  it,  and  sewing  is 
a  restful  occupation  if  taken  up  and  put  down  when  the  inspiration 
is  upon  one.  It  becomes  a  cross  when  the  tyranny  of  fashion 
demands  too  much  of  nervous  fingers,  and  when  the  hours  spent  at  it 
are  taken  from  nobler  pursuits.  Temperance  in  sewing  is  as  much 
demanded  as  temperance  in  eating  or  drinking,  and  only  the  temper- 


HOME-MAKING    AND    HOME-MANAGEMENT. 


5: 


ate  know  how  to  enjoy  the  pleasant  pastime.  How  many  times  sew- 
ing has  rested  and  soothed  the  weary  wife  and  mother  as  nothing 
else  would,  and  what  pleasure  the  fashioning  of  clothes  has  given 
when  they  were  really  useful  and  needful  in  the  house! 

Sometimes  the  variation  of  work  rests  us,  for  nothing  is  more 
tedious  than  a  great  number  of  articles  all  to  be  worked  upon 
till  finished.  Taking  sewing  leisurely,  is  the  way  to  enjoy  it,  and 
there  is  really  a  world  of  satisfaction  and  rest  to  be  found  in  the 
work-basket  if  it  is  called  into  requisition  in  the  right  spirit. 

It  is  a  real  comfort  to  a  prudent-minded  person  to  be  able  to 
fashion  anything,  and  the  pleasure  of  seeing  an  article  grow  into  form 
and  shape  is  certainly  great,  if  necessity  is  not  so  stern  as  to  demand 
toil  of  us.  The  satisfaction  is  not  so  much  in  making  the  thing  to  be 
made,  as  in  getting  pleasure  out  of  the  making.  There  is  a  keen  en- 
joyment to  be  had  out  of  sewing  if  it  is  not  allowed  to  be  too 
absorbing  or  engrossing,  and  if  it  does  not  become  the  master  instead 
of  the  subject.  To  work  to  some  purpose  is  to  weave  in  with  the 
warp  and  woof  of  each  particle  of  surface  gone  over  a  pleasant 
memory,  and  thus  associate  surroundings  and  circumstances  until  for 
all  time  to  come  the  heart  shall  remember  just  how  the  work  was 
done,  and  where.  How  many  such  memories  have  we  all  ?  How 
many  associations  dear  as  time,  are  awakened  by  the  sight  of  a  dress 
or  a  handkerchief,  or  a  neatly-made  garment — worn  and  worthless, 
perhaps,  but  kept  because  of  the  tender  recollections.  It  is  thus  that 
sewing  should  be  done ;  it  is  in  this  way  that  the  work-basket  should 
be  utilized,  and  a  solace  it  is  to  those  who  thus  use  it.  The  familiar 
work-basket  should  be  a  loved  article  of  household  furniture,  and 
mother  or  sister  should  be  associated  with  it,  not  as  hurrying,  driven, 
tired  and  overstrained  sewers,  but  as  enthusiasts,  finding  it  a  relief  to 
sew,  simply  because  by  sewing  social  chat  can  be  indulged  in,  and 
a  time  to  think  would  be  secured,  if  talking  is  not  agreeable. 

Too  much  attention  is  given  to  it,  hence  the  complaints  made  by 
many  women  that  they  are  never  free  from  its  monotony.  Too  little 
time  is  given  to  varying  the  work,  and  lightening  each  day  the  labor  to 


56  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

be  performed.  We  should  try  harder  not  to  have  so  much  sewing  to 
do ;  and,  laying  aside  the  nonsensical  demands  of  the  work-basket,  do 
only  that  which  is  called  for  absolutely.  The  time  has  come  for 
women  to  be  ransomed  from  the  needle,  and  to  be  made  acquainted 
with  the  pleasure  that  sewing — a  proper  amount  and  performed  under 
right  circumstances — will  give  to  them.  It  is  now  that  slavery  in 
this  direction  should  end,  and  a  better  standard  of  work  and  workers 
be  secured  thereby.  We  have  had  the  veneering  style  long  enough. 
We  need  some  Eastlake  in  the  sewing-basket  as  much  as  we  do  in  the 
furniture  in  the  parlors,  or  the  upholstery  in  the  bed-rooms.  To  sim- 
plify sewing,  to  do  it  well,  and  to  make  each  article  so  durable  that 
it  will  last  well  and  serve  a  good  purpose,  this  is  the  true  end  of  sew- 
ing. It  has  been  a  much  abused  trade  long  enough  ;  let  us  raise  it  to 
the  dignity  of  a  fine  art  by  refusing  to  utilize  or  countenance  any  but 
the  best  and  plainest  kinds  of  sewing.  No  more  tawdry  decoration  of 
ill-shaped  and  poorly  sewed  garments.  We  want  art  needlework,  and 
we  propose  to  so  dignify  our  beloved  companion  the  sewing-basket, 
that  none  but  artists  will  be  able  to  compete  for  the  best  prizes  in 
this  calling. 


THE  BABY  IN  THE  HOME. 

•'  Where  did  you  come  from,  baby,  dear  ? 
Out  of  the  everywhere  into  here. 

Where  did  you  get  the  eyes  so  blue  ? 
Out  of  the  sky  as  I  came  through. 

Where  did  you  get  that  little  tear  ? 
I  found  it  waiting  when  I  got  here. 

What  makes  your  forehead  so  smooth  and  high  ? 
A  soft  hand  stroked  it  as  I  went  by. 

What  makes  your  cheek  like  a  warm,  white  rose? 
I  saw  something  better  than  any  one  knows. 

Whence  that  three-cornered  smile  of  bliss? 
Three  angels  gave  me  at  once  a  kiss. 

Where  did  you  get  this  pretty  ear  ? 
God  spoke,  and  it  came  out  to  hear. 

Where  did  you  get  those  arms  and  hands? 
Love  made  itself  into  hooks  and  bands. 

Feet,  whence  did  you  come,  you  darling  things  ? 
From  the  same  box  as  the  cherub's  wings. 

How  did  they  all  come  just  to  be  you  ? 
God  thought  of  me  and  so  I  grew. 

But  how  did  you  come  to  us,  my  dear? 
God  thought  about  you,  and  so  I  am  here.' 

SHE  advent  so  anxiously  expected  has  taken  place.  The 
doctor  says  that  all  is  well,  as  he  puts  on  his  gloves 
and  bids  us  keep  the  patient  quiet,  and  give  her  milk 
and  beef-tea  at  stated  intervals,  and  a  sense  of  unutter- 
able thankfulness  that  his  dear  companion  is  safe  fills 
a  good  husband's  heart.  For  many  months  and  weeks  he  has  tried 
hard  to  banish  the  perils  of  child-birth  from  her  mind  and  his  own,  but 

(57) 


58  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

ever  and  anon  an  anxious  cloud  has  darkened  his  vision,  and  he  has 
perhaps  brushed  a  tear  from  his  dim  eyes  away  as  he  has  thought, 
"  Poor  wife  !  if  she  were  taken  from  me,  what  should  I  do  ?  "  This  is 
true  marriage,  in  spite  of  little  differences  settled  as  soon  as  the\'  begin, 
when  the  man  or  woman  feels  tl.at  without  the  wife  or  the  husband  the 
burdens  of  life  would  be  unbearable,  and  that  to  lose  that  kindly 
face  and  sympathizing  heart  would  be  to  lose  all  that  makes  life 
worth  living.  O,  how  glad  is  the  poor  man  when  he  learns  that  all 
danger  is  over,  and  that  his  wife  will  not  be  taken  from  him  as  so 
many  are,  leaving  a  motherless  child,  or  taking  it  with  her  to  another 
home.  Now  the  sunshine  of  happiness  and  hope  illumines  the  face 
that  was  lately  downcast.  Already  he  sees  his  boy  cherishing 
his  mother  when  she  is  old  and  he  is  dead.  My  boy,  he  thinks,  will 
be  a  better  man  than  his  father.  He  will  rise  far  higher ;  he  will 
have  no  such  drawbacks  and  hindrances  as  I  have  had.  I  am  not  m.uch 
of  a  scholar,  but  he  will  be  great  in  all  that  books  can  teach,  for 
now-a-days  they  say  that  science  and  learning  may  be  had  by  any 
lad  for  the  asking.  How  proud  his  mother  will  be  of  him  !  I  hope 
he  will  be  like  her  in  quiet  power,  and  have  her  forgiving  temper,  I 
am  a  little  hasty  sometimes  myself,  and  want  things  my  own  way. 
But  my  wife  is  always  right,  and  has  the  best  of  it  when  we  differ. 
Poor,  dear  girl !  she  has  been  a  better  wife  to  me  than  I  deserve,  and 
all  her  thoughts  and  feelings  are  way  ahead  of  mine.  How  happy  this 
little  man  will  make  her !  I  guess  I  shall  have  to  do  my  own  mend- 
ing for  the  future.  I  wonder  if  I  shall  get  any  dinner  now,  that  the 
youngster  will  need  all  her  care.  Well,  I  must  shift  for  myself  and 
take  "  pot-luck,"  as  the  saying  is.  And  so  the  father  rambles  on, 
and  -scratching  his  agricultural  pate,  for  no  doubt  he  is  a  farmer,  or  he 
would  not  be  thus  discussing  the  first-fruits,  and  the  crops  and  the 
tender  blossom  that  has  appeared  suddenly  in  the  little  garden  of 
home.  Let  us  leave  the  good  man  to  sleep  on  the  floor,  or  break 
his  neck  between  two  stools,  or  sit  up  smoking  his  pipe  and  gazing 
at  the  stars  that  have  looked  down  on  such  domestic  scenes  since 
light    first    broke   from  heaven  upon  the  earth.     How  calmly  they 


Hie 


BABY'S  WELCOME. 


THE    BAUV    IN    THE    HOME.  ^g 

regard  him,  eveiy  quivering  orb  seeming  to  wink  at  him  that  his 
case  is  not  uncommon,  and  that  his  baby  will  not  be  the  last  man. 

"  Nothing  in  nature's  aspect  indicated 
That  a  great  man  was  dead," 

sang  Tennyson  upon  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  Noth- 
ing in  nature's  aspect  indicates  that  a  new  man  is  born  on  such 
occasions  as  the  one  I  am  describing.  All  things,  except  in-doors,  con- 
tinue as  they  were.  The  birds  have  not  an  extra  note,  nor  the  flowers 
an  extra  perfume.  Yet  there  is  melody  and  fragrance  in  one  poor 
woman's  heart  as  she  "  remembers  no  more  the  anguish,  for  joy  that 
a  man  is  born  into  the  world." 

The  mother  also  has  deep  and  silent  thoughts,  and  the  tear  of 
thankfulness  betokens  that  her  meditation  is  sweet. 

"  To-day  the  haliow'd  air 
Is  fragrant  with  a  mother's  fust  and  fondest  prayer." 

"  O,  what  a  treasure  of  sweet  thought 

Is  here !   what  hope  and  joy  and  love 

All  in  one  lender  hosom  brought!  " 

Siie  is  glad  if  it  is  a  boy,  for  I  suppose  all  mothers  prefer  boys. 
But  if  it  prove  a  girl  she  is  well  content,  and  so  is  the  father,  for  if  a 
boy  excites  more  worldly  ambition  a  girl  is  most  prophetic  of 
domestic  tranquillity. 

For  both  father  and  mother,  as  they  watch  the  opening  growth  of 
the  little  man  or  woman  who  has  come  from  God  to  bless  tliem,  day 
by  day  and  week  by  week,  there  lies  in  helpless  trust  an  incarnate  soul 
and  a  miniature  of  all  biography,  a  figure  and  an  embryo  of  all  the 
nn-steries  of  life.  Through  the  mere  accident  of  its  parents  meeting, 
loving  and  marrying  in  this  jostling  world,  this  angel  of  the  liomc 
has  come.  Yet  that  accident,  interpreted  by  such  a  blessing,  was 
a  special  providence.  Within  that  little  casket  is  a  priceless  jewel. 
Those  tiny  hands   may  one  day  grasp   the  rod  of  empire.     Those 


6o  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

tiny  feet  may  traverse  distant  lands,  and  be  shod  with  light  and  in- 
fluence. That  little  head  may  have  potentially  the  awful  power  of 
reason,  the  reflected  light  of  memory,  the  keen  dividing  force  of 
judgment,  the  happy  blending  power  of  wit.  Love,  and  faith,  and 
hope  are  beating  imperceptibly  in  that  unconscious  heart.  That 
speechless  tongue  may  bear  a  message  to  the  world.  Its  pedigree 
dates  back  into  the  ages  past,  its  destiny  into  ages  yet  to  come. 
Eternal  memories  are  written  on  its  brow,  for 

"  Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 
Nor  yet  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God  who  is  our  Home." 

Beautifully  as  well  as  truly  did  the  ancient  seers  and  poets  embody 
their  previsions  of  ideal  government  and  human  regeneration  in  the 
person  of  some  coming  child.  The  names  of  Wonderful  and  Coun- 
sellor are  his.  "  The  government  shall  be  u[)on  his  shoulders,  and  a 
little  child  shall  lead  them,"  is  the  strain  alike  of  Virgil  and  Isaiah. 
The  humble  cottage  has  been  the  birthplace  often  of  the  world's 
heroes.  The  thatched  roof  has  sheltered  genius  in  its  helpless 
infancy.  Pai"ents,  you  should  cherish  this  baby  in  your  home  with 
reverence  as  well  as  natural  affection,  for  you  may  be  entertaining  an 
angel  unawares.  Certainly  he  is  a  king's  son,  or  she  a  king's 
daughter,  "  all  glorious  within,"  or  why  does  the  baby  at  once  assume 
command,  and  employ  so  many  hands,  and  feet,  and  hearts  to  do  it 
service  ? 

In  a  few  weeks'  time  you  will  see  the  light  of  intelligence  and  ob- 
servation begin  to  concentrate  in  the  wondering  and  wistful  eyes. 
The  little  face  will  turn  toward  you,  and  greet  you  with  a  smile. 
The  hands,  so  small  and  soft,  with  tapering  fingers,  and  pink,  trans- 
parent nails,  will  be  thrown  out  to  bid  you  take  it  in  your  arms  and 
play  with  it.  Soon,  and  by  steps  }-ou  cannot  trace,  the  cry  of  need 
will  become  the  speech  of  reason,  and  the  longing  mind,  receiving 
impressions  and  comparing  objects,  will  begin  to  question  "why?" 
**  How"  is  born  some  time  after  "  why"  in  the  child's  reason. 


THE    BABV    IN    THE    HOME.  6 1 

But  suppose  your  little  one  be  not  "a  mute,  inglorious  Milton," 
"  a  Cromwell,  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood,"  a  Mozart,  a  Shaks- 
peare,  a  Michael  Angelo,  or  a  Newton,  but  one  of  the  many,  one  of 
the  people,  an  ordinary  citizen  of  the  world  in  promise,  it  may  be 
just  as  well  for  his  happiness  and  yours.  Precocious  children  are 
not  always  the  most  amiable,  and  genius  oftentimes  has  to  suffer  and 
pay  awful  penalties.  So  that  his  brain  works  orderly,  and  his  heart 
is  "  in  the  right  place,"  you  need  have  no  regrets.  Your  baby  will 
still  be  the  dearest  being  in  the  world  to  you.  You  will  learn  from 
him  more  than  you  can  teach  him.  He  will  be  the  angel  of  the 
covenant  of  home.  He  will  draw  out  your  noblest  qualities,  and 
engage  your  most  unselfish  devotion.  He  will  be  more  to  you  than 
lands  and  houses,  riches  and  fame,  and  make  sunshine  for  you  in 
life's  wintry  days. 

There  is  something  very  affecting  and  beautiful  in  the  thought 
that  parents  live  again  in  their  offspring.  So  that  man  may  be  said 
never  to  die  so  long  as  his  spirit  is  perpetuated  in  his  children,  who 
again  transmit  it  onward  in  unbroken  succession.  As  a  physio- 
logical fact,  the  same  distinctive  qualities  of  mind  and  body,  modified, 
of  course,  by  time,  climate,  circumstances,  and  the  like,  are  found  in 
races,  nationalities,  and  families.  A  curious  instance  of  this  occurred 
to  a  traveller,  who  was  much  struck  by  the  resemblance  of  a  young 
girl  to  a  very  dear  friend  of  his,  belonging  to  another  place,  and  bear- 
ing another  name.  Even  the  voice  and  manner  constantly  recalled 
his  absent  friend.  The  young  girl  subsequently  proved  to  be  his 
friend's  second  cousin,  though  the  gentleman  had  not  the  remotest 
idea  previously  of  his  friend's  name  or  person  being  even  known  to 
the  girl's  family.  "What  is  bred  in  the  bone  will  come  out  in  the 
flesh,"  is  a  very  old  saying,  and  it  is  constantly  verified  in  the  reap- 
pearance of  race  and  family  characteristics  in  different  generations 
and  individuals.  What  a  multitude  of  reflections  are  suggested  by 
this  fact !  Some  of  them  are  full  of  sweetness,  light  and  hope  ;  others, 
alas !  are  full  of  awful  warning  and  sadness.  When  Thomas  Starr 
King,   the    political    orator   and  eloquent    preacher,    of    San    l^ran- 


62  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

CISCO,  was  on  his  death-bed,  his  last  look  was  fixed  upon  the  face  of 
his  little  son,  carried  in  his  nurse's  arms.  "  Beautiful  boy  !  beautiful 
boy !  "  were  the  last  words  he  spoke,  and  love  for  his  dear  child  was 
the  last  throb  of  the  dying  father's  heart.  Some  persons  attach  a 
significance  akin  to  inspiration  to  a  great  spirit's  parting  sign  on 
•earth.  If  the  last  thought  of  earth  should  be  the  first  in  heaven, 
and  memory  and  affection  only  rise  upward  to  a  higher  sphere,  then 
heaven's  first  gladness  to  this  departing  parent  was  love  for  his  boy, 
care  for  his  welfare,  hope  for  his  future.  And  if,  as  some  believe, 
science  will  yet  find  means  of  photographing  from  the  retina  of  a 
dead  person's  eyes,  the  faces  and  objects  that  were  last  imaged  upon 
it,  then  this  father  left  the  earth  with  the  picture  of  his  child  im- 
pressed upon  his  physical,  and  with  the  spiritual  picture  upon  his 
spiritual  vision.  There  is  no  fraud  or  superstition  in  such  a  spirit- 
ualistic theory  as  this.  The  patterns  of  things  in  heaven  may  be 
woven  from  those  of  earth  ;  and  if  so,  then  it  is  indeed  true  that 
"  the  company  in  heaven  and  earth  are  one."  Death  no  longer  parts 
the  souls  that  love  each  other  or  destroys  the  family  circle.  The 
little  maiden's  "  We  are  seven,"  is  true,  although  one  enters  at  one 
door,  while  another  passes  out  of  sight  through  another. 

How  cheering  to  the  parent's  heart  is  such  a  vision  !  The  thoughts, 
the  affections,  the  aspirations,  and  enterprises  of  father  or  mother 
shall  still  live,  and  move,  and  have  their  being  in  the  son  or  daughter, 
and  so  we  do  not  die  but  live,  since  life  is  thus  constantly  renewed  in 
those  through  whose  veins  our  own  life-blood  courses.  Charles  R. 
Darwin  and  Herbert  Spencer  in  their  life-work  did  but  carry  out  the 
work  which  their  own  fathers  had  begun,  and  left  them  as  their  intel- 
lectual heirs  and  representatives.  But  if  there  is  a  bright  side  to  such  a 
view,  there  is  also  a  dark  side.  Human  law  teaches  us  the  maxim  that 
he  who  commits  crime  through  another  commits  it  himself,  and  the 
great  Teacher  of  still  higher  law  said  to  his  disciples,  "  It  has  been  said 
by  them  of  old  time,  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth ;  but  I  say 
unto  you,  forgive  your  enemies,  and  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you." 

If  parents  thus  live  on  in  their  children  and  can  impress  their  own 


TilE    BABY    IN    THE    HOME.  63 

personal  qualities  upon  them,  how  tremendous  is  the  parental  re- 
sponsibility for  their  future  characters  and  lives!  Some  parents  seem 
to  think  that  it  does  not  matter  what  their  children  see  and  hear, 
because  they  are  only  children.  "A  mere  child,"  to  use  a  common 
phrase,  may  see  anger,  quarrelling,  and  perhaps  blows  in  the  house- 
hold and  not  be  affected  by  such  sights  or  sounds.  What  monstrous 
folly !  As  soon  as  a  child  sees  he  observes  ;  the  gradually  growing 
brain  is  conscious,  and  the  power  of  thought  begins  when  sight,  hear- 
ing and  observation  begin.  How  soon  a  child  learns  to  know  its  own 
name,  and  looks  to  see  who  speaks  to  it !  When  you  laugh,  and 
smile  at  it  and  play  with  it,  is  it  unconscious  ?  And  it  is  just  as  con- 
scious when  it  sees  your  face  assume  an  angry  frown,  and  hears  your 
voice  raised  in  anger.  I  have  seen  a  little  child  of  three  months  old 
who  would  chirp  and  spread  its  tiny  arms  for  joy  at  the  voice  of 
kindness,  happiness  and  love,  but  whose  little  face  would  lengthen 
with  a  solemn  wonder,  and  almost  a  sense  of  pain  and  wrong,  if  its 
parents  only  pretended  to  be  angry  with  each  other,  or  the  nurse  had 
slapped  another  in  a  feint  of  chastisement.  Let  us  be  sure  that  every 
act  we  do  and  every  word  we  speak  has  a  latent  influence  upon  our 
children.  When  old  Samuel  Johnson  was  asked  by  the  mother  of  a 
little  girl  three  years  of  age  how  she  should  begin  to  educate  her, 
the  wise  doctor  of  laws  and  of  social  philosophy  answered,  "  Madam, 
you  have  consulted  me  two  years  too  late."  Education  really  begins 
as  soon  as  the  child  is  born  into  the  world.  When  the  eyes  open,  it 
is  ours  to  take  care  that  the  first  prospect  they  look  upon  is  one  of 
light  and  peace.  When  the  ear  first  listens  let  heaven's  best  music — 
the  true  music  of  the  home — fall  upon  it. 

We  hear  much  talk  about  bright,  and  smart,  and  clever,  and  pre- 
cocious children.  What  is  this  precocity  but  receptivity  to  im- 
pressions, sensibility  to  influences?  Would  any  child  be  "  wiser  than 
the  ancients"  without  such  contact?  Do  they  come  into  the  wt)rld 
revealing  things  to  us  or  do  we  reveal  things  to  them  ?  It  is  the 
parent's  hand  that  draws  aside  the  curtain  and  shov/s  its  child  the 
play   upon  the    mimic   stage   of  life.     It   is  the  parent's   voice  that 


64  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

teaches  truth  or  error  little  by  little,  day  by  day,  unconscious  of  the 
tremendous  results  of  that  teaching  to  the  child.  Some  people  think 
the  infant  baptism  practised  by  the  older  Christian  churches  a  sense- 
less form  and  great  absurdity.  But  its  real  sense  seems  to  me  to  be 
the  witness  it  bears  to  this  great  truth,  that  as  soon  as  life  begins, 
influences  and  education  begin  also. 

Let  us  glance  at  the  childhood  of  some  typical  precocious  child. 
Hartley  Coleridge  is  the  first  that  occurs  to  my  mind.  '  This  is  what 
his  brother  Derwent  tells  us  of  him,  and  it  illustrates  the  principles  I 
have  just  stated.  "  By  nature  not  less  than  by  circumstances  he  was 
indeed  the  poet-child  of  a  poet-father.  ...  I  have  heard  my  mother 
say  that  when  he  was  first  taken  to  London,  being  then  a  child  in 
arms,  and  saw  the  lamps,  he  exclaimed,  *  O !  now  I  know  what  the 
stars  are — they  are  lamps  that  have  been  good  upon  earth,  and  have 
gone  up  into  heaven.'  "  And  in  the  diary  of  Henry  Crabb  Robinson 
is  the  following  entry  under  date  of  August  the  8th,  181 1  :  "After- 
wards stepped  to  Charles  Lamb's.  Coleridge  there,  who  related  some 
curious  anecdotes  of  his  son  Hartley,  whom  he  represented  to  be  a 
most  remarkable  child — a  deep  thinker  even  in  his  infancy.  He 
tormented  himself  in  his  attempts  to  solve  the  problems  that  would 
equally  torment  the  full-grown  man,  if  the  world,  and  its  cares  and 
pleasures  did  not  distract  his  attention.  Hartley,  when  about  five 
years  old,  was  aske(4  a  question  about  himself  being  called  Hartley. 
'  Which  Hartley  ?  '  asked  the  boy.  '  Why  !  is  there  more  than  one 
Hartley?'  'Yes,'  he  replied;  *  there's  a  deal  of  Hartleys.'  'How 
so  ? '  '  There's  Picture-Hartley  (Hazlitt  had  painted  a  portrait  of 
him),  and  Shadow-Hartley,  and  there's  Echo-Hartley,  and  there's 
Catch-me-fast-Hartley ; '  at  the  same  time  seizing  his  own  arm  with 
the  other  hand  very  eagerly^ — an  action  which  shows  that  his  mind 
must  have  been  drawn  to  reflect  on  what  Kant  calls  the  great  and 
inexplicable  mystery,  viz. :  that  man  should  be  both  his  own  subject 
and  object,  and  that  these  two  should  be  one.  At  the  same  early 
age,  continued  Coleridge,  Hartley  used  to  be  in  an  agony  of  thought, 
puzzling  himself  about  the  reality  of  existence.     As  when  some  one 


THE    BABV    IN    THE    HOME.  65 

said  to  him, '  It  is  not  now,  but  it  is  to  be.'  '  But,'  said  he,  *  if  it  is  to  be, 
it  is.'  Perhaps  this  confusion  of  thought  lay  not  merely  in  the  im- 
perfection of  language.  Hartley,  when  a  child,  had  no  pleasure  in 
things ;  they  made  no  impression  on  him  till  they  had  undergone  a 
process  in  his  mind,  and  were  become  thoughts  and  feelings." 

Now  this  precocious  child  was  exactly  four  years,  four  months  and 
twenty  days  old  when  this  incident  occurred.  Who  can  assign  a 
period  too  early  in  that  brief  life  for  this  wonderful  power  of  reflection, 
comparison  and  introspection  to  have  begun  ?  And  there  are  plenty 
more  of  whom  the  world  never  hears,  but  of  whom  it  is  equally  true 
that  they  are  deep  thinkers  even  in  their  infancy.  Well  might 
the  parent  of  such  a  child  address  him  as  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge 
did  in  those  exquisite  lines : 

"  Dear  Babe,  that  sleepest  cradled  by  my  side, 
Whose  gentle  breathings  heard  in  this  deep  calm, 
Fill  up  the  interspersed  vacancies 
And  momentary  pauses  of  the  thought: 
My  Babe,  so  beautiful !  it  thrills  my  heart 
With  tender  gladness,  thus  to  look  on  thee. 
And  think  that  thou  shalt  learn  far  other  love, 
And  in  far  other  scenes !     For  I  was  rear'd 
In  the  great  city,  pent  'mid  cloisters  dim, 
And  saw  naught  lovely  but  the  sky  and  stars. 
But  t/iou,  my  Babe,  shalt  wander  like  a  breeze 
By  lakes  and  sandy  shores,  beneath  the  crags  •. 

Of  ancient  mountains,  and  l)enealh  the  clouds, 
Which  image  in  their  bulk  both  lakes  and  shores 
And  mountain  crags ;  so  shalt  thou  see  and  hear 
The  lovely  shapes  and  sounds  intelligible 
Of  that  eternal  language  which  thy  God 
Utters,  who  from  eternity  doth  teach 
Himself  in  all,  and  all  things  in  himself. 
Great  universal  Teacher !     He  shall,  mould 
Thy  spirit,  and  by  giving  make  it  ask." 

In  a  similar  strain,  his  father  addresses  him  in  the  poem  entitled 
"The  Nightingale:" 
5 


66  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

"  That  strain  again  ! 
Full  fain  it  would  delay  me !  My  dear  Babe, 
Who,  capable  of  no  articulate  sound,  * 

Mars  all  things  with  his  imitative  lisp. 
How  he  would  place  his  hand  beside  his  ear ; 
His  little  hand,  the  small  forefinger  up. 
And  bid  us  listen !     And  I  deem  it  wise 
To  make  him  Nature's  Playmate.     He  knows  well 
The  evening  star;  and  once  when  he  awoke 
In  most  distressful  mood  (some  inward  pain 
Had  made  up  that  strange  thing,  an  infant's  dream), 
1  hurried  with  him  to  our  orchard  plot. 
And  he  beheld  the  moon,  and,  hush'd  at  once. 
Suspends  his  sobs,  and  laughs  most  silently, 
While  his  fair  eyes,  that  swam  with  undropt  tears. 
Did  glitter  in  the  yellow  moon-beam.     Well, 
It  is  a  Father's  tale :  but  if  that  Heaven 
Should  give  me  life,  his  childhood  shall  grow  up 
Familiar  with  these  songs,  that  with  the  night 
He  may  associate  joy !  " 

A  little  later,  when  he  was  six  years  old,  we  find  this  wondrous  boy 
appearing  in  one  of  Wordsworth's  most  exquisite  poems. 

"TO  H.  C. 

"SIX   YEARS   OLD. 

"  O  Thou  !  whose  fancies  from  afar  are  brought ; 

Who  of  thy  words  dost  make  a  mock  apparel, 
And  fittest  to  unutterable  thought 

The  breeze-like  motion  and  the  self-born  carol ; 
Thou  fairy  voyager  !  thou  dost  float 
In  such  clear  water,  that  thy  Boat 
May  rather  seem 

To  brood  on  air  than  on  an  earthly  stream  ; 
Suspended  in  a  stream  as  clear  as  sky, 
Where  earth  and  heaven  do  make  one  imagery; 

0  blessed  Vision  !  happy  Child  ! 
Thou  art  so  exquisitely  wild, 

1  think  of  thee  with  many  fears 

For  what  may  be  thy  lot  in  future  years. 


THE    BABY    IN    THE    HOME.  67 

I  thought  of  times  when  Pain  might  be  thy  guest, 

Lord  of  tliy  house  and  hospitality; 
And  Grief,  uneasy  lover  1  never  rest. 

But  when  she  sal  within  the  touch  of  thee. 
O  too  industrious  folly, 
O  vain  and  causeless  melancholy, 
Nature  will  either  end  thee  quite 
Or,  lengthening  out  thy  season  of  delight, 
Preserve  for  thee,  by  individual  right, 
A  young  lamb's  heart  among  the  full-grown  flocks. 
What  hast  thou  to  do  with  sorrow, 
Or  the  injuries  of  to-morrow  ? 

Thou  art  a  Dew-drop,  which  the  morn  brings  forth.- 
Ill  fitted  to  sustain  unkindly  shocks. 
Or  to  be  trailed  along  the  sailing  earth; 
A  gem  that  glitters  while  it  lives, 
And'  no  forewarning  gives ; 
But,  at  the  touch  of  wrong,  without  a  strife 
Slips  in  a  moment  out  of  life." 

The  bright  and  beautiful  Baby,  whose  deep  thoughts  and  eager 
questionings  evoked  so  much  anxiety  for  the  future  and  tender  care 
for  the  present,  fulfilled  in  after  life  the  picture  thus  drawn  of  him  by 
the  kind  poet's  hand  so  nearly  that  the  prophecy  might  almost  seem 
inspired.  But  there  are  other  fairy  voyagers  whose  fragile  boats 
seem  rather  to  brood  on  air  than  on  an  earthly  stream  ;  other  Dew- 
drops  as  ill  fitted  as  poor  Hartley  Coleridge  proved  to  bear  unkindly 
shocks.  His  character  through  a  solitary  life  blighted  by  morbid 
sensitiveness  and  an  irresolute  will,  was  that  of "  multitudes,  multi- 
tudes, in  the  Valley  of  Decision."  Whence  was  this  strange  combi- 
nation of  noble  impulses,  sublime  aspirations,  profoundly  philo- 
sophic musings  and  metaphysical  insight,  combined  with  a  pitiable 
weakness,  a  despondent  temper,  a  wish  without  the  power  to  be  true 
to  his  better  self,  derived  ?  Surely,  in  some  degree,  from  the  father 
who  idolized  hirn,  who  had  for  seventeen  years  been  the  slave  of 
the  opium  habit,  which  had  enfeebled  the  will  and  the  reason  and 
clouded  the  memory  and  the  imagination  of  one  of  the  greatest 
minds  the  world  has  ever  known.     Had  the  laudanum-drinking  of 


68  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  the  father,  nothing  to  do  with  the  dram- 
drinking  of  Hartley  Coleridge,  the  son  ?  No  one  can  doubt  that  it 
had,  who  knows  anything  about  the  hereditary  transmission  of  appe- 
tites as  well  as  talents.  There  is  not  a  selfish  or  luxurious  habit, 
whether  it  be  a  deadly  one  like  opium-eating  or  not,  which  a  parent 
can  indulge  which  is  not  liable  to  reappear  in  another  form  and  taint 
the  character,  even  if  it  does  not  poison  the  life  and  blight  the  career 
of  his  offspring.  There  is  no  sadder  sight  than  this  generous,  tender- 
hearted and  highly  gifted  youth  presented  when — within  a  year  after 
gladdening  his  own,  his  father's  and  his  brothers'  hearts  by  winning 
a  position  in  England's  oldest  university,  which  would  have  given  him 
a  distinction  and  a  competence  for  life,  by  his  own  talents  and  learn- 
ing in  fair  competitive  examination  with  others — he  was  expelled  from 
it  for  drunkenness.  The  agonized  father — consciousness  of  his  own 
infirmity  adding  to  his  grief — went  down  and  pleaded  with  an  old 
man's  tears  for  his  poor  son ;  but  the  character  of  the  college  and 
that  of  the  students  was  involved,  and  the  authorities  could  not,  if 
they  wished,  overlook  a  habit  which  was  notorious  and  had  stretched 
its  victim  helpless  in  the  gutter.  And  this  was  the  "  fairy  voyager  " 
whose  raft  of  life  was  to  sail  always  in  clear  water,  or  seemed  to  do 
so  in  his  infancy.  Pain  and  grief  were  now  and  henceforth  indeed 
his  guests.  The  Dew-drop  was  indeed  earth-soiled,  and  the  gem  was 
stript  of  its  setting. 

From  this  and  similar  biographies,  parents,  and  especially  fathers, 
should  learn  the  caution  that  they  must  take  care  of  the  example 
they  set  their  children,  and  that  a  far  truer  saying  than  "  Never  too 
late  to  mend  "  is  "  Never  too  young  to  learn,"  Mental  and  moral 
no%  less  than  physical  disease  may  be  cured  if  taken  in  time.  But 
the  time  is  not  when  the  habits  are  formed  and  have  become  a  second 
nature ;  when  the  character  is  set  and  hardened,  and  cannot  be  bent 
and  inclined  at  another  angle.  Reader,  if  you  are  a  father  or  a 
mother,  and  are  looking  with  love  and  joy  upon  the  face  of  your 
infant  who  as  yet  can  neither  speak  nor  choose  his  future  lot,  remem- 
ber as  you  love  your  own  solils  that  upon  you,  and  not  on  circum- 


THE    BABY    IN    THE    HOME  69 

Stances  external  to  the  Home,  depends  mainly  the  awful  issue  of  what 
it  shall  be  and  what  shall  become  of  it.  It  is  you,  not  what  you  call 
■  a  hard,  unfeeling  world,  that  will  make  or  mar  your  child.  It  is  for 
you  to  determine  whether  its  tongue  shall  speak  vanity,  and  its  right 
hand  be  a  right  hand  of  falsehood.  It  depends  upon  you  whether 
your  sons  shall  be  as  "  plants  grown  up  in  their  youth,"  and  your 
daughters  become  as  "  corner-stones,  polished  after  the  similitude  of 
a  palace."  The  white  unwritten  page  of  your  child's  life  and  charac- 
ter is  open  for  you  to  write  upon.  The  impressions  made  upon  it  by 
the  parents  are  indelible.  The  first  sights  and  sounds  that  are 
reflected  upon  a  child's  remembrance  are  ineffaceable. 

Nature  will  assist  you  in  this  work,  but  she  will  not  do  it  for  you. 
She  gives  the  material  for  you  to  work  upon.  You  might  as  well 
expect  the  grass  and  plants  to  grow  without  moisture  as  the  soul  to 
grow  without  culture.  Nature  provides  the  limbs,  but  exercise  devel- 
ops them  and  gives  them  strength  and  symmetry.  Yet  many  parents 
seem  to  think  that  their  children  will  love  the  beautiful  and  do  the 
good  by  mere  instinct,  and  that  the  mere  process  of  living  will  insure 
their  living  rightly  and  worthily.  One  might  as  well  expect  reading 
and  writing  to  come  by  nature.  But  God  says  to  the  parent,  as 
Pharaoh's  daughter  said  to  the  nurse  to  whom  she  intrusted  the 
infant  who  was  to  become  the  law-giver  of  a  great  race :  "  Take  this 
child  and  nurse  it  for  me,  and  I  will  pay  thee  thy  wages,"  or  I  will 
reward  thee.  What  reward  can  be  greater  than  to  see  one's  heaven- 
given  babe  awakening  more  and  more  to  a  perception  of  light  and 
beauty,  and  loving  "  whatsoever  things  are  lovely "  and  true  and 
noble  ?  Do  not  be  content  with  vegetation  for  your  child  ;  teach  it  to 
live.  How  many  parents,  who  neglect  this  duty  through  selfish 
indolence  or  ignorance,  live  to  wish  that  their  child  had  never  been 
born  ! — while  those  who  "  train  up  a  child  in  the  way  that  he  should 
go  "  verify  the  proverb  that  "  when  he  is  old  he  will  not  depart  from 
it."  This  is  no  miracle  ;  it  is  the  course  of  nature  and  experience. 
Habits  become  laws ;  good  habits  mean  happiness  and  honor;  evil 
habits  mean  misery  and  degradation.     It  depends  upon  home  infiu- 


•JO  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

ences  and  parental  training  whether  the  helpless  baby  shall  grow  to 
be  a  king  or  a  slave  in  mind  and  disposition.  If  your  child  inherits 
from  you  a  hasty  temper,  you  can  cure  that  by  exhibiting  your  own 
self-control  and  discipline  of  word  and  deed.  If  your  child  is  selfish 
and  greedy,  it  is  in  your  power  to  make  it  thoughtful  and  considerate 
of  others.  The  selfish  child  can  be  so  infused  with  higher  reason  as 
not  only  to  give  but  to  give  willingly  and  gladly  to  another  in  more 
need  what  it  would  gladly  keep  itself  If  its  natural  disposition  be 
to  recklessness  and  prodigality,  it  is  the  father  who  can  infuse  pru- 
dence, which  is  a  Christian  virtue,  and  instil  habits  of  forethought, 
discernment,  carefulness  and  moderation. 

But  if  Baby  comes  into  the  school  of  Home  as  a  learner  whom  the 
parents  must  teach  the  alphabet  of  life,  it  is  also  a  teacher  sent  from 
God.  You  may  learn  from  your  little  one  more  than  you  can  teach 
it,  for  it  comes  to  you  unspotted  by  the  world,  and  the  simplicity  of 
childhood  is  often  wiser  than  the  shrewdness  of  old  age.  Well  has 
the  poet  said  : 

"  O  dearest,  dearest  child  !      My  heart 
For  better  love  would  seldom  yearn 
Could  I  but  teach  the  hundredth  part 
Of  what  from  thee  I  learn." 

The  chief  lessons  that  Baby  teaches  in  the  home  are  love,  sym- 
pathy, patience,  faith,  trust,  and  self-denial.  It  draws  you  out  of  your- 
self and  brings  out  tlie  noblest  part  of  you.  How  the  first  baby  has 
humanized  and  softened  many  a  harsh  and  selfish  father  !  The  stern 
face  relaxes  into  smiles  at  the  sight  of  its  little ■  image  free  from  its 
v/rinkles  and  its  blemishes.  It  is  a  great  thing  for  the  father  when 
he  has  to  make  sacrifices  and  give  up  selfish  indulgences  for  the  sake 
of  his  child.  He  becomes  as  a  little  child,  and  is  himself  born  again 
and  renovated  in  this  humanizing  and  refining  process.  His  little  son 
becomes  his  "  alter-cgo^'  his  other  and  better  self  His  little  daughter 
is  a  delight  to  his  eyes  and  a  new  warmth  to  his  heart.  Each  week 
arid  month  he  lives  more  in  his  child  and  less  in  himself  The  power 
of  parental  sympathy   steals  over  his  heart  like   gentle    dew   from 


THE    BABY    IN    THE    HOME.  7 1 

heaven,  freshening  the  ground  it  falls  upon.  It  is  sometimes  trying 
to  his  nerves  after  a  hard  day's  work  to  be  kept  awake  by  Baby's 
crying,  but  it  will  refresh  him  more  than  sleep  if  he  bethinks  him 
how  soon  pain  and  prayer  begin  in  this  life,  and  that  all  the  members 
of  the  human  family,  however  wise  and  strong  they  think  themselves, 
are  but  as 

"  Children  crying  in  the  night, 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 

But  it  is  with  babies  as  with  grown  people.  Life  is  not  all  tears 
and  crying,  all  pain  and  discord.  "  Heaviness  may  endure  for  a  night, 
but  joy  Cometh  in  the  morning."  And  when,  after  the  night  of  cry- 
ing, the  morning  of  happiness  and  health  breaks  upon  the  infant's 
face  and  it  chirrups  with  a  sense  of  life  and  spreads  its  little  arms  out 
as  though,  like  the  Good  Shepherd  himself,  it  would  enfold  the  uni- 
verse in  its  affection,  oh,  then,  how  pleasant  is  dear  baby  to  look  upon  ! 
And  speaking  of  that  chirrup,  that  inarticulate  but  to  the  quick  ear 
of  parental  affection  always  intelligible  sign,  how  wonderful  is  the 
imperceptible  progress  by  which  the  young  child  learns  to  talk  ! 
What  language  it  will  speak  will  depend  upon  what  it  hears,  for 
speaking  is  learned  by  hearing.  It  will  catch  in  time  not  only  the 
vernacular  but  even  the  dialect  and  accent  of  its  parents.  When  little 
ones  talk  slang  we  can  tell  what  the  language  of  their  home  is.  Let 
us  be  careful  how  we  speak,  as  well  as  what  we  speak,  in  their  pres- 
ence. But  how  passing  strange  it  is  to  reflect  that  a  little  accident, 
like  that  of  nationality  or  birthplace,  will  decide  the  vehicle  in  which 
they  will  think  and  utter  their  thoughts  through  life.  U  they  hear 
French  in  the  nursery,  they  will  speak  French  some  day,  perhaps,  on 
the  platform  and  in  the  market-place.  If  their  parents'  language  is 
the  English,  then  we  shall  find  them  talking  English  from  the  nursery 
to  the  grave.  One  of  the  greatest  of  modern  philologcrs,  who  knew 
all  the  languages  spoken  b}'  civilized  nations,  muttered  some  strange 
words  on  his  death-bed,  and  then  whispered,  "  This  is  the  language 
which  they  speak  in  heaven."  It  was  not  French,  nor  ICnglish,  nor 
German,  nor  Italian,  nor  Russian,  that  he  spoke  ;  it  was,  perhaps,  a 


72  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

language  he  had  evolved  from  all  of  them  which  he  muttered  with 
his  last  breath,  and  called  the  language  of  the  heavenly  land.  The 
thought  is  beautiful  and  may  be  true,  that  the  clearest  speech  and 
most  copious  tongue  on  earth  is  but  a  prelude  to  the  symphonies 
that  angel-tongues  pour  forth  in  heaven.  But  whatever  the  vowels 
and  the  consonants,  and  whatever  the  pronunciation  of  them,  may 
your  Baby  learn  to  speak  the  language  of  the  heart,  for  that  is  always 
listened  to  in  the  presence  of  God.  That  is,  indeed,  a  universal 
language,  better  than  Greek  or  Latin,  English  or  French.  It  is  the 
password  at  the  celestial  gates,  the  conversation  of  the  celestial  home. 
Through  it  your  little  child  discourses  to  the  spheres.  By  it  he  is 
known  among  the  stars  as  the  child  of  God.  Science  teaches  us  that 
sound  is  never  lost,  that  language  never  dies ;  but  that  the  spoken 
word  vibrates  on  the  ear  of  time  and  is  borne  on  and  on  in  ever-widen- 
ing circles.  Words  spoken  thousands  of  years  ago  are  musical  and 
sonorous  to-day.  Whatever  the  origin  of  language  may  have  been, 
the  language  of  the  heart  flows  directly  from  the  heart  of  the  All- 
Father  who  bids  his  children  call  to  him  from  every  nook  and  corner 
of  the  world.  Your  Baby  when  it  moves  its  pretty  lips  is  trying  to 
repeat  that  language,  and  the  angels  pause  to  listen  and  catch  its 
inmost  thought.  The  heart-language  of  its  future  life  will  be  noted 
by  those  angels,  whose  ears  are  the  telephones  of  God,  and  whose 
eyes  do  always  behold  the  Heavenly  Father's  Face,  God  bless  the 
Baby  in  the  Home  ! 


your  life ! " 


"UP-STAII^S,  DOWN-STAIRS,  IN  MY  LADY'S  CHAMBER." 

"  Labor  is  rest — from  the  sorrows  that  greet  us ; 
Rest  from  all  petty  vexations  that  meet  us ; 
Rest  from  sin  promptings  that  ever  entreat  us ; 

Rest  from  world  sirens  that  lure  us  to  ill. 
Work — and  pure  slumbers  shall  wait  on  thy  pillow ; 
Work — thou  shalt  ride  over  Care's  coming  billow ; 
Lie  not  down  wearied  'neath  Woe's  weeping  willow, 

Work  with  a  stout  heart  and  resolute  will ! 


HERE  is  a  cry  for  "  Help"  all  over  the  land.  It  is  not 
because  our  houses  are  on  fire  or  we  are  besieged  by 
burglars,  or  have  fallen  into  the  river  and  don't  know 
how  to  swim.  It  is  not  because  the  highwayman 
holds  a  pistol  to  our  nose  and  says,  "  Your  money  or 
It  is  not  because  the  roof  has  fallen  in,  and  we  are 
struggling  in  vain  to  get  our  limbs  out  of  the  ruins.  It  is  not  the 
cry  of  the  beggar  who  has  lost  the  use  of  his  eyes  and  can  only  see 
clearly  to  count  his  money  when  nobody  is  looking.  It  is  not  from 
the  unfortunate  who  has  fallen  into  a  ditch  and  is  too  fat  to  crawl  out. 
It  is  not  from,  the  starving  and  the  homeless  who  appeal  to  our 
charity.  It  is  not  from  the  missionary  society  who  want  more  money 
to  send  fresh  ministers  to  the  Cannibal  Islands  because  the  last  batch 
have  been  eaten  up.  It  is  not  from  the  hunter  whom  a  grizzly  has 
driven  up  a  tree,  and  who  is  afraid  to  come  down  to  be  hugged  by 
the  brute  who  is  quietly  sitting  on  his  hind  legs  to  receive  him.  It 
is  not  from  persons  who  want  to  borrow  money,  or  build  school- 
houses  in  the  wilderness,  or  churches  at  the  North  Pole.  It  is  none 
of  these,  although  they  arc  heard  often  enough.  It  is  a  cry  for 
help,  "Up-stairs,  down-stairs,  and  in  my  lady's  chamber."  It  means, 
"  Can  you  tell  me  of  a  good  servant  ?  " 

(73) 


74  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

In  the  great  majority  of  American  families  this  is  the  cry,  and  it 
is  a  cry  for  the  most  necessary  article  in  a  well-to-do  family,  and  the 
one  which  is  the  most  difficult  to  get.  If  you  have  money  in  your 
purse,  you  may  go  out  and  buy  what  you  please  at  the  market  and 
in  the  stores.  But  some  of  the  richest  people  in  the  land  find  it  the 
hardest  thing  in  the  world  to  get  a  good  servant.  They  can  get 
help  in  plenty,  but  not  the  right  sort.  If  walls  have  ears,  as  they  say, 
they  must  get  quite  tired  listening  to  some  such  conversations  as 
this,  which  are  to  be  constantly  heard  in  the  houses  of  the  wealthy 
and  those  who  are  able  to  pay  for  help : 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  So-and-so,  I  am  delighted  to  see  you  looking  so 
well.     How  is  Mr.  So-and-so,  and  how  are  the  children?" 

"  Thank  you,  they  are  all  pretty  well ;  but  you  must  excuse  my 
having  the  broom  and  dust-pan  in  my  hand.  The  fact  is,  we  are  all 
upside-down  and  I  am  driven  out  of  my  wits." 

"  Dear  me,  Mrs.  S.,  you  quite  alarm  me.  I  hope  nothing  serious 
has  happened." 

"  Serious  enough,  indeed  !  I  am  without  a  servant.  My  house- 
maid left  me  last  week,  and  my  cook  went  off  yesterday." 

"  Indeed,  my  dear  Mrs.  S.,  how  you  surprise  me  !  Why,  when  I 
last  saw  you,  you  seemed  delighted  with  your  new  girl,  and  said  that 
after  trying  six  in  three  months  you  had  at  last  found  a  treasure. 
Pray  put  your  dusting-brush  down  and  tell  me  all  about  it,  for  the 
fact  is  I  called  partly  to  ask  you  if  you  could  recommend  me  a  nurse 
for  the  children,  thinking  you  had  been  more  fortunate  with  servants 
than  myself,  for  I  have  changed  my  nursery  maid  thirteen  times  since 
New  Year's." 

"  Then,  my  dear  friend,  we  can  indeed  feel  for  each  other.  Pray 
tell  me  why, your  last  girl  left." 

"  For  the  first  week  she  suited  me  very  well,  but  what  do  you 
think  ?  My  husband  awoke  me  one  night  and  said  he  smelt  smoke, 
and  that  something  must  be  burning.  After  sniffing  for  some  seconds 
to  satisfy  myself  that  the  poor,  dear  man  was  not  dreaming,  I  got  up, 
lit  a  candle,  and  proceeded  to  make   an   investigation.     Going  up- 


"  UP-STAIRS,    DOWN-STAIKS,    IN    MV    LADV  S    CHAMBER."  75 

stairs,  to  the  girl's  bedroom,  I  looked  in,  for  I  always  keep  the  key 
of  the  door  so  that  the  maids  may  not  lock  themselves  in,  for  they 
would  sleep  till  ail  hours  if  they  were  free  from  intrusion.  What  do 
you  think  ?  The  creature  had  fallen  asleep  with  a  dime  love-story  in 
her  hand,  and  on  a  chair  beside  her  was  a  tallow  candle  which  was 
slowly  burning  the  ends  of  her  back  hair.  But  for  my  husband's 
nose  it  must  soon  have  caught  her  bed,  and  the  creature  would 
have  been  a  conflagrated  corpse,  besides  burning  the  house  down!" 

"  How  dreadful,  to  be  sure !  Did  she  come  well  recommended 
from  her  last  place  ?  " 

"Yes,  indeed;  she  had  lived  at  Mr.  Smith's,  the  minister' .s,  who 
is  himself  a  great  sitter  up  o'  nights  at  his  studies.  The  girl  herself 
told  me  this,  and  said  she  thought  she  was  doing  right  in  improving 
her  mind  in  the  night-time.  But  this  was  not  all.  On  opening  her 
box  to  see  if  she  kept  matches  or  dynamite,  I  found  a  whole  budget 
of  love-letters,  no  doubt  the  result  of  dime  novel  reading.  I  got  rid 
of  her  in  the  morning,  for  fear  the  inflammable  Miss  might  set  fire 
to  the  children  or  set  her  cap  for  the  coachman." 

"  Goodness  !  how  horrible !  who  can  be  safe,  with  such  servants, 
from  being  burned  alive  in  their  beds !  But  my  own  luck  with  mj- 
last  girl,  Mary  Ann,  was  little  better.  I  shall  never  believe  in  faces 
again  as  long  as  I  live.  You  must  know  that  I  had  engaged  to  spend 
the  day  a  little  way  out  of  town,  but  lost  the  train  and  had  to  wait 
two  hours  for  another.  I  thought  I  would  fill  up  the  time  by  making 
a  call  or  two.  Just  imagine  my  consternation  on  turning  down  High 
street  to  come  fiice  to  face  with  my  own  servant,  dressed  in  my  dark- 
green  silk,  second  best  bonnet  with  the  ostrich  plumes,  lavender  kid- 
gloves,  and  my  flowered  silk  parasol  in  her  hand.  She  looked  ready 
to  drop  when  she  caught  my  eye,  and  darted  across  the  street.  But 
a  policeman  was  at  hand  and  took  her  to  the  station-house,  where 
the  matron  took  my  things  off  her.  The  girl's  penitence  seemed  sin- 
cere when  she  thought  she  had  to  borrow  a  policeman's  overcoat  to 
get  home  in.  I  would  have  sent  her  to  state's  prison,  but  my  hus- 
band is  a  patriot  and  was  much  moved  when  she  assured  us  that  her 
great-grandfather  lost  both  legs  in  the  Revolutionary  war." 


76  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

"  Why  did  you  allow  your  husband's  weakness  to  interfere  with 
justice  ?  Such  creatures  ought  to  wear  a  prison  dress  and  pick 
oakum  for  the  good  of  society.  What  are  we  coming  to  when  our 
own  dry-goods  are  not  safe  ?  And,  by  the  way,  you  remember  that 
blue  velvet  mantilla  of  mine  that  I  bought  in  New  York  last  fall? 
It  disappeared  about  the  same  time  as  Susanna,  my  fifth  housemaid 
before  the  last.  But  the  creature's  admirer  was  in  the  dyeing  busi- 
ness and  might  have  turned  it  pea-green,  so  I  took  no  steps  to  re- 
cover it.  It  costs  more  than  a  thing  is  worth  to  prove  one's  owner- 
ship." 

"  How  about  your  stout  cook,  Matilda  Pancake,  who  suited  you 
so  well?" 

"  So  she  did  at  first,  but  I  found  out  within  a  month  that  she  had  a 
weakness  for  lager  beer,  which  she  drank  by  the  gallon.  At  such 
times,  she  was  at  first  convivial  and  only  noisy,  but  when  she  came 
into  my  parlor,  while  I  was  receiving  some  visitors,  and  abused  me 
to  my  face,  I  ordered  her  to  pack  her  things  and  be  off.  '  Not  with- 
out a  month's  wages! '  says  she;  and  when  I  refused  to  pay  it,  she 
smashed  half  my  crockery.  She  called  next  day  to  apologize,  and 
said  she  suffered  with  a  hot  temper  caused  by  standing  over  the  fire. 
But,  of  course,  one's  life  and  limbs  are  not  safe  with  a  cook  who 
drinks,  so  I  refused  to  take  her  back.  My  husband  said  we  had 
better  try  and  get  along  without  a  cook  after  such  an  experience,  and 
that  he  would  try  not  to  mind  it  as  he  could  dine  at  the  club." 

"  You  remember  that  girl  Lucretia  Muffins,  whom  I  engaged  be- 
cause her  father  was  a  baker  and  she  professed  to  be  skilful  in  making 
bread  and  pastry.  I  heard  a  great  kicking  on  the  kitchen  floor  one 
morning,  and  found  the  poor  thing  in  a  fit  all  covered  with  paste.  It 
seemed,  from  her  statement  to  our  doctor  whom  I  sent  for,  that  she 
has  the  St.  Vitus'  dance,  which  comes  on  whenever  she  works  hard. 
She  is  now  in  the  female  wing  of  the  Epileptic  Sanitarium.  But 
I  am  talking  you  to  death  with  my  own  troubles  when  you  have 
enough  of  your  own.  Do  tell  me  how  you  manage  to  get  a  dinner, 
and  if  you  have  a  good  cook." 


"  UP-STAIRS,    DOWN-STAIRS,    IN    MV    LADY's    CHAMBER."  77 

"  I  have  been  almost  as  unfortunate  as  yourself,  my  dear  Mrs.  S. 
At  present  I  have  no  cook  at  all,  and  my  nursemaid,  Barbara,  and 
myself  have  to  get  the  dinners  the  best  way  we  can.  To  save  trouble, 
I  generally  cook  a  quarter  of  mutton,  or  round  of  beef,  all  at  once,  so 
that  it  may  last  cold  all  the  week.  It  does  very  well,  for  my  poor 
husband  seems  to  have  no  appetite  lately,  and  his  business  keeps  him 
away  at  meal  times  a  great  deal.  But  I  should  make  your  blood 
run  cold  if  I  told  you  why  I  parted  with  my  last  cook,  Lucinda 
Waffles.  My  maid,  Barbara,  tells  it  thrillingly  now  that  Waffles  is 
gone,  for,  would  you  believe  it,  the  wretch  threatened  her  life  with 
the  rolling-pin  if  she  ever  breathed  a  word.  All  I  know  of  the  matter 
is  that  my  bills  became  enormous  after  Lucinda  Waffles  came  to  me. 
I  engaged  her  on  the  strength  of  her  advertisement  and  the  reference 
she  gave  me  to  a  merchant  in  the  city,  who  was  strikingly  like  the 
brother  just  arrived  from  India,  who  spent  the  Sunday  mornings 
with  her  in  the  kitchen  when  we  were  all  away  at  church,  and  only 
Barbara  was  left  at  home  to  assist  in  getting  the  dinner  ready. 

"  The  way  the  Cincinnati  smoked  hams  vanished  would  have  par- 
alyzed me  if  I  had  not  more  than  I  could  do  in  counting  the  new- 
laid  eggs  which  disappeared  as  quickly  as  they  were  brought  into 
the  house.  Bread,  butter,  cheese,  pickles,  fruit,  pie,  and  spring 
chickens  vanished  in  the  same  mysterious  manner.  My  suspicions 
were  at  length  aroused,  and  I  questioned  Lucinda  Waffles,  but  could 
get  no  satisfaction.  She  disputed  my  remark  that  things  couldn't 
walk  off  without  legs.  Hams  shrunk  in  the  cooking,  eggs  were 
very  scarce,  cold  roast  beef  was  very  deceptive  owing  to  the  quan- 
tity of  bone  in  it,  and  so  forth.  '  Lucinda,'  I  answered,  *you  arc  de- 
ceiving me.  The  butcher's  bill  is  just  double  since  you  came.  I 
feed  you  liberally,  but  I  will  have  no  more  waste.'  .  But  matters 
went  on  as  before,  and  I  then  noticed  that  little  Barbara,  my  maid, 
seemed  in  great  fear  of  Waffles,  the  cook,  and  trembled  whenever 
she  saw  her  witli  the  rolling-pin  in  her  hand.  One  day  I  questioned 
Barbara  closely.  '  Please,  m'm,  don't  ask  me  nothing,  m'm,  for  its 
more'n  my  life's  worth  to  tell.     Waffles   has  sworn  to  kill  me  with 


78  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

the  rolling-pin  if  I  tell  on  her.'  With  much  difficulty  I  persuaded 
the  girl  to  reveal  all  she  knew.  The  brother  from  India  was  always 
let  in  at  the  back  door  when  every  member  of  the  family  had  gone 
out  at  the  front.  Lucinda  sat  on  his  knee  and  cooked  ham  and 
eggs  for  him  in  quantities  that  proved  he  got  no  meals  anywhere 
else.  I  discharged  the  creature  at  once  without  mentioning  poor 
Barbara,  who  was  frightened  out  of  her  wits.  The  brother  from 
India  called  for  Waffles'  baggage." 

Such  are  the  conversations  that  may  be  heard  in  thousands  of 
homes  from  mistresses  who  can't  get  servants  and  whose  cry  is 
"Help!" 

This,  however,  is  only  one  side  of  the  domestic  picture.  The 
servants  often  have  grievances  as  well  as  the  mistresses.  If  too 
little  is  expected  of  them  in  one  way,  too  much  is  demanded  in  an- 
other. If  one  rein  is  too  loose,  another  is  too  tight.  They  are 
allowed  to  take  liberties  at  one  time  only  to  be  severely  checked  at 
another.  The  mistress  will  often  demean  herself  by  talking  scandal 
about  her  neighbors  with  her  own  servant  and  then  complain  that 
the  servant  does  the  same  by  her.  The  relative  positions  of  mistress 
and  servant,  employer  and  employe,  requires  that  the  one  should  set 
a  proper  example  to  the  other.  But  how  can  the  servant  be  ex- 
pected to  govern  her  temper  when  the  mistress  has  no  control  of 
her  own? 

It  may  be  said  that  in  a  republican  country  like  our  own,  where 
everybody  is  everybody's  equal  and  a  good  deal  superior  to  every- 
body in  his  own  esteem,  it  is  impossible  to  observe  class  distinc- 
tions and  treat  those  whom  we  employ  as  they  are  treated  in  the  old 
countries,  where  the  social  scale  is  graduated  from  the  monarch  to 
the  mendicant.  "Our  servant  would  not  stay  with  us  unless  she 
were  treated  as  one  of  ourselves,"  is  a  remark  which  one  frequently 
hears  in  all  sections  of  the  country,  and  it  has  a  right  side  and  a 
wrong  side.  The  right  side  is  that  you  must  remember  that  your 
servant  has  a  proper  self-respect  and  dignity  of  feeling  as  well  as 
yourself     Her  heart,  indeed,  may  be  warmer  and  less  selfish  than 


"  UP-STAIRS,    DOWN-STAIRS,    IN    MV    LADY  S    CHAMBER."  79 

yours.  Her  mind  may  be  finer  than  yours  if  she  had  enjoyed  the 
privileges  of  governess,  and  school,  and  finishing  masters  as  you 
did  when  a  girl.  Down  deep  in  the  current  of  her  nature  may  be  a 
refinement  and  delicacy  of  feeling  which  is  not  natural  to  3'ourself 
In  point  of  fact,  if  the  relative  circumstances  of  birth,  money,  and 
education  had  been  changed,  the  mistress  and  the  maid  might  oc- 
cupy each  other's  positions. 

"  When  Adam  delved,  and  Eve  span, 
Where  was  then  the  gentleman?" 

But  this  does  not  change  existing  facts.  A  contract  is  a  contract, 
and  both  parties  are  bound  by  it.  Service  may  not  be  one's  choice, 
but  when  accepted  it  should  be  faithfully  performed.  The  person 
who  accepts  it  may  have  an  inner  consciousness  of  being  worth}'  of 
a  higher  vocation,  but,  as  a  rule,  those  who  have  a  right  to  this  feel- 
ing are  those  who  will  discharge  best  whatever  duties  they  under- 
take. Bad  servants  prove  by  their  unfaithfulness  that  they  are  not 
worthy  of  a  higher  trust. 

One  great  cause  of  the  discontent  of  servants  is  the  false  idea  that 
there  is  something  degrading  to  one's  self-respect  in  the  service  of 
others.  But  if  this  were  so,  no  man  or  woman  in  the  world  would 
be  self-respecting,  because  all  of  us,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest, 
are  dependent  on  one  another.  A  prince  or  a  president  is  more  de- 
pendent on  his  servants  than  they  are  upon  him.  To  "suckle  fools 
and  chronicle  small  beer"  is  a  position  of  immense  responsibility. 
No  kind  of  honest  work  is  degrading,  and  faithful  servants  are  the 
salvation  of  the  world.  If  every  woman  wore  silks,  who  would  wear 
home-spun?  If  every  one  rode  in  her  carriage,  who  would  walk 
on  foot?     If  vve  all   sat  in  the   drawing-room,  who  would  attend  to 

the  kitchen  ? 

"  If  wishes  were  horses,  beggars  would  ride," 

but  who  would  feed  the  horses  and  keep  the  stables  in  order? 

There  is  nothing  mean  in  the  service  of  others.  It  is  the  servant 
who   can   degrade  the  service,  not  the  service  the  servant.     Those 


80  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

who  would  climb  the  ladder  of  life  must  go  up  step  by  step.  Yet 
many  who  accept  domestic  service  in  this  country  seem  to  think 
that  the  whole  United  States  ought  to  go  out  to  meet  them  when  they 
land  from  Ireland,  or  Germany,  or  Norway,  or  Sweden,  and  put  rings 
on  their  fingers  and  bells  on  their  toes.  The  women  expect  to  see 
the  shores  lined  with  unfortunate  bachelors  whom  the 'native  female 
population  does  not  suffice  to  provide  with  wives.  The  emigration 
societies  of  the  old  world  aid  in  spreading  this  delusion,  and  single 
women  think  themselves  as  much  in  demand  here  as  potatoes  were 
in  Ireland  in  the  days  of  famine.  The  spinster  of  uncertain  age 
thinks  she  has  only  to  set  her  foot  on  American  soil  to  be  wooed 
and  won,  before  she  has  even  had  time  to  unpack  her  baggage,  by  a 
well-to-do  farmer  who  will  conduct  her  to  a  farm  well  tilled,  which 
only  needed  her  presence  to  make  a  home  of  it.  She  has  yet  to 
learn  that  wives  and  of  the  very  best  quality  are  among  the  native 
productions  of  the  American  soil.  It  is  they  who  have  made  our 
wilderness  to  "blossom  as  the  rose." 

Still,  there  is  a  fair  chance  of  a  home  of  her  own  for  every  likely 
girl  who  comes  here,  and  there  is  no  better  way  of  getting  ready  for 
it,  than  by  helping  to  keep  in  order  the  homes  of  others.  While 
she  is  attending  to  other  people's  children  she  is  preparing  herself 
for  managing  her  own.  If  she  lets  her  mistress's  baby  fall  into  the 
wash-tub,  she  ought  not  to  expect  that  any  young  man  who  sees 
her  carelessness  will  propose  to  her. 

But  if  she  be  faithful  and  kind,  industrious  and  patient,  she  will 
soon  feel  at  home  in  the  home  of  her  employers.  She  will  win  their 
respect  and  then  their  affection.  No  treasure  is  felt  to  be  so  valuable 
as  a  confidential  servant,  when  the  confidence  has  been  gained,  not 
by  liberties  taken,  but  by  interests  protected.  To  the  nurse-maid 
mothers  intrust  the  darlings  of  their  home.  Upon  her  care  and 
intelligence  their  safety  and  frequently  their  lives  depend.  The 
mother  cannot  help  loving  those  that  love  her  children.  To  be  kind 
to  them  is  to  win  a  warm  place  in  her  regard. 

The  home  may  have  many  antiquarian  relics.     The  old  Family 


"UP-STAIRS,    DOWN-STAIRS,    IN    MY    LADV's    CHAMBER."  8[ 

Bible  may  be  there,  recording  the  births,  marriages  and  deaths  of 
many  generations.  Old  trees  may  stand  around  the  family  roof-tree. 
Old  keepsakes  may  adorn  the  mantel-shelves ;  old  portraits  hang 
upon  the  walls,  and  old  dresses,  some  of  them  old  bridal  dresses,  be 
treasured  in  the  closets,  but  more  precious  than  all  of  these  is  the 
faithful  old  servant  who  has  become  one  of  the  family  by  years  of 
endearing  service  in  it.  When  Joseph  had  served  Pharaoh  faithfully, 
so  that  he  had  become  essential  to  his  kingdom,  he  made  him  ruler 
of  his  household,  and  said  to  him,  "  Only  in  the  throne  will  I  be 
greater  than  thou."  Every  one  should  know  his  or  her  place,  and 
each  one's  place  is  just  his  own ;  the  one  in  which  his  duties  are. 
and  neither  the  place  above  nor  the  place  below  him. 

In  order  to  do  this,  mutual  forbearance  as  well  as  mutual  confi- 
dence must  prevail  on  both  sides.  There  must  be  no  treasuring 
up  of  little  vexations  until  they  estrange  mistress  and  maid  from  each 
other.  Every  stone  of  offence  should  be  removed  at  once,  as  we  go 
along,  and  not  left  until  a  heap  accumulates.  Little  trials  are  often 
far  more  difficult  to  bear  than  great  ones,  just  as  the  sting  of  a 
mosquito  irritates  the  skin  worse  than  a  good  slap  with  the  open 
hand.  Let  mistress  and  servant  try  to  alleviate  and  as  much  as 
possible  prevent  the  little  trials  of  domestic  life.  Suppose,  oh, 
servant,  that  you  let  the  fire  go  out  at  the  hour  when  your  mistress 
will  return  tired  with  a  journey  and  need  a  cup  of  tea.  Will  it  make 
the  kettle  boil  to  tell  her  you  are  sorry,  but  that  you  forgot  all  about 
it  ?  If  you  are  the  cook  and  allow  the  dinner  to  spoil,  and  pour 
catsup  over  the  pudding,  and  sweet  sauce  over  the  meat,  while  you 
deluge  your  pastry  with  salt  in  mistake  for  powdered  sugar,  and 
use  cayenne  as  you  would  common  pepper,  will  it  restore  peace  of 
mind  and  stomach  to  the  family  to  tell  them  that  your  sight  is  not  as 
good  as  it  was,  and  that  "  things  are  not  what  they  seem  "  to  you  ? 
If  you  drop  hairpins  and  bodkins  into  your  home-made  bread,  will 
it  undo  the  horrible  tortures  you  have  inflicted  on  those  who  have 
swallowed  it  if  you  say  that  the  baker's  man  or  the  butcher's  boy 
rang  the  bell  in  your  hour  oi  hiead  and  put  you  in  a  flurry  ?  If  you 
6 


82  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

tread  upon  your  master's  gouty  toe,  will  your  begging  his  pardon 
make  the  weight  of  your  heel  less  painful  ? 

If  you  feel  it  very  hard  to  be  so  often  scolded  by  your  mistress, 
don't  you  think  that  she  feels  it  very  hard  to  have  to  tell  you  the 
same  thing  half  a  dozen  times  in  the  course  of  the  day  ?  She  has 
told  you  not  to  slam  doors,  or  kick  them  or  put  your  weight  against 
them,  but  to  turn  the  knob  and  the  lock.  Yet  you  will  keep  on 
banging  the  door  every  time  you  enter  or  leave  a  room.  This  is 
torture  even  to  the  eyes  and  ears  of  mere  visitors  who  happen  to  be 
present :  what  must  it  be  to  the  patient  mistress  who  tries,  for  your  own 
sake  as  well  as  for  hers,  to  make  a  good  and  thorough  servant  of  you  ? 
And  then  what  a  weight  of  woe  there  is  in  an  untidy  servant !  She 
scatters  pins  and  needles  wherever  she  goes  instead  of  blessings. 
She  never  knows  for  five  minutes  together  where  she  has  put  what  you 
are  looking  for,  and  thinks  it  quite  enough  to  assure  you  that  it  is 
quite  safe  because  she  remembers  putting  it  away  for  safety. 

Then  how  friglitful  are  the  effects  upon  the  nervous  system  of 
others  of  little  peculiarities,  whether  of  mistress  or  servant!  There 
is  a  way  of  looking  at  another  person  which  dethrones  their  reason, 
and  sets  them  topsy-turvy  in  a  moment.  A  lady  of  the  highest 
respectability  went  hopelessly  insane  because  a  single  gentleman  who 
took  the  rooms  opposite  to  hers  invariably  stared  at  her  with  a  fixed, 
sardonic  leer.  The  old  lady's  reason,  never  very  strong,  gave  way 
under  such  unusual  attentions,  which,  of  course,  she  interpreted  as 
the  deepest  infatuation  and  the  irresistible  attraction  of  the  magnet 
to  the  pole.  Many  a  long  night  did  the  poor  thing  lie  awake 
wondering  when  the  old  gentleman's  eye  would  become  more  ex- 
pressive of  affection,  and  his  lips  would  "pop  the  question."  But 
the  time  rolled  on  and  the  eye,  though  fixed  upon  her  wherever  she 
went  with  the  same  constancy  as  ever,  did  not  soften  or  grow  milder 
in  its  beam.  It  was  a  glass  eye,  but  she  did  not  know  it.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  exasperating  things  in  the  world  to  be  stared  at,  and  if 
homicide  were  ever  justifiable  it  ought  to  be  so  when  applied  to 
those  who  stare  other  people  out  of  countenance. 


"  UP-STAIRS,    DOWN-STAIRS,    IN    MY    LADY  S    CHAMBER.  83 

There  are  many  other  excruciating  habits  by  which  mistresses 
can  torture  their  servants,  and  servants  their  mistresses.  Such,  for 
instance,  is  the  habit  of  constantly  sniffling  when  spoken  to,  and 
saying,  "  Yes,  m'm,"  a  word  of  doubtful  etymology,  and  not  to  be 
found  in  any  dictionary.  If  a  sniff  meant  approval  like  "Amen,"  it 
might  be  tolerated;  as  it  is  it  has  no  meaning  at  all,  but  is  a  nasal 
confession  of  mental  vacuity.  So  "  Yes,  m'm,"  if  it  meant  that  one's 
meaning  was  fully  understood,  and  that  one's  wish  would  be  obeyed, 
might  be  permissible,  but  if  it  have  any  meaning  at  all  it  signifies  that 
the  servant  will  go  on  saying  "  Yes,  m'm,"  to  the  end  of  her  days, 
and  will  never  be  any  nearer  than  she  is  now  -to  understanding  or 
obeying  her  mistress. 

It  has  frequently  been  observed  by  physiologists  that  men  and 
women  have  been  supplied  with  a  left  hand  as  well  as  a  right,  and 
there  is  no  just  reason  why  they  should  not  employ  both  instead  of 
leaving  all  the  work  to  the  right.  Servants,  therefore,  show  a  laud- 
able ambition  when  they  endeavor  to  use  their  left  hands  as  well  as 
their  right  hands,  and,  no  doubt,  it  is  praiseworthy  in  them  to  use 
them  both  at  the  same  time  whenever  they  are  trying  to  do  two 
things  at  once.  Yet  tea-cups  and  saucers,  tumblers  and  wine-glasses, 
china  tea-sets  and  coffee-sets,  meat-plates  and  soup-plates,  and  fruit- 
plates,  tureens  and  jugs,  sauce  ladles  and  bric-a-brac  all  cost  a  good 
deal  of  money,  and  it  is  very  trying  to  see  them  destroyed  at  the  rate 
of  one  or  two  a  week  by  one  of  these  ambitious  servants,  who  always 
has  both  hands  full  in  trying  to  do  two  things  at  the  same  time. 

Many  a  mistress  has  died  of  nervous  prostration  brought  on  hy\ 
the  violent  palp'tation  and  nervous  excitement  caused  by  constantly- 
seeing  her  new  servant  try  how  high  a  pyramid  of  plates  she  can 
carry  in  one  hand,  while  she  is  tilting  an  irregular  pile  of  cups  and 
saucers  in  the  other.  When  she  slips  and  they  go  down,  as  much 
injury  has  been  done  to  the  poor  mistress*  constitution  and  as  many 
nails  have  been  knocked  in  her  coffin  as  if  she  had  lived  to  the  age 
of  Methuselah  in  that  horrible  five  minutes.  The  habit  of  humming, 
muttering  or  talking  to  one's  self  in  each  other's  company-  is  rcpre- 


84  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

hensible,  whether  in  servant  or  mistress.  It  is  no  excuse  for  making 
hideous  sounds  that  you  are  singing  one  of  Mr.  Sankey's  favorite 
hymns  to  a  tune  of  your  own. 

Grease  spots  on  carpets  have  often  turned  the  mutual  gratitude 
and  affection  of  mistress  and  servants  for  each  other  into  the  most 
implacable  animosity.  It  is,  indeed,  more  than  flesh  and  blood  can 
bear  to  see  the  cruet-stand  or  the  ink-stand  upset  upon  a  new  Brus- 
sels or  tapestried  carpet,  all  for  want  of  the  very  commonest  care.  A 
girl  will  stand  with  her  mouth  wide  open  and  her  eyes  staring  while 
from  either  hand  a  vessel  of  grease  is  pouring  its  liquid  treasures  on  to 
the  carpet.     These  are  the  times  that  try  mistress'  souls. 

Many  servants  will  exert  an  amount  of  industry  and  ingenuity  in 
making  a  bed  so  hilly,  uneven,  misshapen,  and  uncomfortable  that  no 
one  can  get  a  wink  of  sleep  upon  it,  when  they  might  have  made  it 
up  comfortably  for  one-half  the  time  and  pains.  Whatever  is  worth 
doing,  is  worth  doing  well,  applies  to  tidying  a  room  as  much  as  to 
making  a  dress.  "  Many  a  mickle  makes  a  muckle,"  is  an  old  Scotch 
proverb,- and  it  is  one  which  domestic  servants  should  lay  to  heart. 
One  pin,  or  burnt  lucifer  match,  upon  one's  parlor  carpet,  if  unre- 
buked,  would  in  time  result  in  carpets  strewn  with  threads,  crumbs, 
needles,  bits  of  paper,  snips  of  ribbon,  locks  of  hair,  etc., 

"  Thick  as  autumnal  leaves  that  strew  the  brooks 
In  Vallambrosa." 

Some  servants  will  leave  water  in  a  basin  for  the  person  who 
next  uses  it  to  einpty.  They  don't  put  back  what  they  take  down. 
Their  shelves  are  in  a  litter.  Their  pantry  is  without  order.  Their 
sleeping-room  is  left  to  take  care  of  itself  Their  kitchen  is  always 
upside  down.  They  take  no  proper  pride  in  their  own  personal  ap- 
pearance, thinking  finery  on  a  holiday  and  a  clean  show  on  a  Sunday 
an  offset  for  untidiness  and  slovenliness  on  week-days. 

If  I  have  mentioned  many  faults  of  carelessness  and  stupidity  in 
servants,  it  is  because  I  esteem  their  calling  to  be  one  of  the  most 
respectable  upon  earth.     In  many  countries  the  faithful  servant  is 


"  UP-STAIRS,    DOWN-STAIRS,    IN    MY    LADV's    CHAMBER."  85 

provided  for  to  the  end  of  his  or  her  hfe.  They  not  only  have  com- 
forts which  their  relatives  cannot  obtain,  such  as  better  dwelling  and 
food,  but  they  have  opportunities  for  self-improvement  which  other 
modes  of  living  do  not  supply.  It  has  been  said  that  no  man  is  a 
hero  to  his  valet,  because  he  is  seen  by  his  servants  as  he  really  is, 
not  with  his  "  quality  manners  "  on.  But  every  master  and  mistress 
should  be  able  to  bear  this  constant  survey,  and  should  win  the  re- 
spect and  esteem  of  their  servants  by  justice,  kindness  and  noble  living. 
The  good  and  faithful  master  is  one  of  nature's  noblemen ;  the  kind 
mistress,  who  is  ever  ready  to  advise  her  servants  and  guide  them  in 
their  duty,  is  a  crown  to  her  husband  and  her  home;  and  the  good 
servant,  in  the  highest  sense,  is  a  masterpiece  of  Christian  civilization. 
She  is  no  slave,  except  as  all  of  us  are  the  slaves  of  circumstances  to 
a  certain  extent. 

The  position  of  a  servant  ought  to  come  next  in  honor  to  that  of 
a  teacher.  Indeed,  servants  arc  for  good  or  ill  the  teachers  of  chil- 
dren, who  make  them  their  confidants  and  take  their  vaews  and  im- 
pressions from  their  conversation  and  precepts.  In  this  country  good 
servants  are  very  difficult  to  get,  for  reasons  that  have  already  been 
mentioned,  but  when  they  are  found,  they  are  highly  valued  and  not 
lightly  parted  with.  The  biographies  of  old  servants  would  make  a 
very  interesting  volume  of  domestic  literature.  Few  have  such  op- 
portunities for  observing  character  and  learning  to  sympathize  with 
the  trials  of  others.  There  are  training  schools  for  servants,  as  there 
are  for  teachers,  but  a  quick  and  willing  girl  can  learn  more  from  a 
good  mistress  in  her  first  place  than  from  hearing  lectures  or  learning 
rules.  Some  girls  are  "  butter-fingered,"  as  the  saying  is,  by  nature, 
and  it  is  hard  work  and  takes  a  rough  experience  to  make  them  finger- 
sure,  so  that  they  can  avoid  breaking,  slipping  and  spilling.  There 
was  a  famous  cook  who  had  to  prepare  sumptuous  dinners  for  his 
master's  table.  They  were  so  numerous  when  his  master  gave  a 
dinner-party  that  he  found  it  difficult  to  avoid  forgetting  something. 
So  he  arranged  a  long  row  of  pegs  and  hung  upon  each  peg  a  paper 
cap,  and  before  preparing  each   dish  he  put  on  one  of  the  caps,  and 


S6  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

when  the  dish  was  finished  he  threw  the  cap  down.  So  he  went 
through  with  all  the  dishes  and  the  caps.  How  happy  is  that  servant; 
who,  when  each  day's  work  is  done,  can  throw  down  the  cap  of  re- 
sponsibility with  the  knowledge  that  nothing  has  been  forgotten,  or 
done  badly,  or  left  undone,  but  that  when  the  tired  body  lies  down  to 
rest  the  mind  may  say,  "  I  have  done  my  day's  work  thoroughly!" 
That  thoroughness  will  make  the  work  grow  pleasant  to  you.  You 
will  feel  like  an  artist  when  he  has  finished  his  picture  and  sees  the 
colors  all  in  harmony,  without  daubs  and  patches,  but  harmonious 
and  life-like. 

To  acquire  this  self-confidence  and  self-respect,  the  servant  should 
never  put  off  till  to-morrow  what  can  be  done  to-day.  Procrastina- 
tion is  the  thief  of  time.  Don't  l^ave  the  washing  up  of  the  break- 
fast things  until  after  dinner,  or  the  tidying  up  till  the  end  of  the 
week.  Hate  dirt  with  an  intense  hatred.  Resist  the  cobwebs  and 
they  will  flee  from  you.  Don't  let  the  milk  turn  sour  through  the 
heat  before  you  put  it  in  tlie  cooler.  Have  an  eye  frequently  on  the 
kitchen  clock,  and  remember  that  "  moments  are  ages  "  in  their  results, 
and  that  a  meal  not  ready,  a  dish  spoiled,  a  home  in  disorder  has 
driven  many  a  man  to  the  tavern  and  made  him  feel  never  less  at 
home  than  when  at  home. 

Let  not  the  servant  think,  "  I  am  only  a  servant,"  and  therefore  of 
no  consequence,  for  her  employers  do  not  so  think  of  helping  hands 
which  they  cannot  do  without.  It  is  the  hand  of  the  servant  that 
keeps  the  machinery  of  home  in  order. 


^ 


SPOI|TS  /ND  G/MES  FOi|^  L/DIES. 

"  Exercise 
Makes  men  laborious,  active,  wise. 
Brings  health,  and  doth  the  spirits  delight. 
It  helps  the  hearing  and  the  sight ; 
It  teacheth  arts  that  never  slip 
The  memory,  good  horsemanship. 
Search,  sharpness,  courage  and  defence,    ' 
And  chaseth  all  ill  habits  hence."  ■ 


/  'i^^il^^  E  are  veiy  glad  to  record  the  fact  that  the  period  in 
"  woman's  history  in  the  United  States  has  been  reached 

when  it  is  no  longer  regarded  as  unlad3^1ike  to  indulge 
in  any  recreative  sport  or  exercise  which  calls  for  an 
unwonted  degree  of  muscular  exertion  or  activity.  On 
the  contrary,  it  has  now  come  to  be  decidedly  out  of 
fashion  for  a  healthy  young  girl  to  be  unable  to  hold  her  own  credit- 
ably in  either  one  or  the  other  of  the  several  out-door  exercises  or 
games  in  which  it  is  possible  for  ladies  to  excel.  The  education  of  a 
girl  may  very  justly  be  said  to  be  incomplete,  mentally  as  well  as 
physically,  unless  she  has  been  benefited  by  that  activity  of  mind 
and  body  which  results  from  a  practical  familiarity  with  the  out-door 
games  suitable  for  the  fair  sex  to  engage  in.  What  with  equestrian 
exercise  on  the  Park  drives  or  the  country  road;  rowing  in  a  light 
boat  on  a  suburban  lake ;  forming  one  of  a  quartette  at  lawn  tennis 
or  croquet ;  being  one  of  the  contestants  at  an  archery  meeting,  or 
joining  a  girls'  pedestrian  party  for  an  early  morning  five-mile  walk, 
a  charming  variety  of  healthy  out-door  exercises  and  recreative 
sports  is  presented  which  a  moderate  indulgence  in  during  leisure 
time  from  important  home  duties  will  yield  roseate  hues  to  the 
cheeks,  brightness  to  the  eyes  and  an  elasticity  of  mind  which  no 

(87) 


£8  THE  hearthstone;   ok,  life  at   home. 

cosmetic  or  drug  known  to  the  juatcria  nicdica  can  possibly  produce. 
It  is  a  well-known  physiological  fact  that  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  to  the  surface  of  the  body,  induced  by  out-door  exercise,  which 
gives  life  and  activity  to  the  functions  of  the  skin,  and  through  that 
medium  healthy  action  to  the  vital  organs  of  the  system,  results  in  a 
magical  influence  on  the  moral  forces  of  the  mind,  in  bringing  into 
play  good  nature  in  place  of  ill-feeling,  and  in  substituting  a  healthy 
mental  condition  for  those  morbid  sensations  which  result  from  a 
neglect  of  physical  exertion  of  a  recreative  nature.  It  is  only  when 
the  physical  machinery  of  the  body  is  in  thorough  working  order 
that  the  more  delicate  mental  organization  finds  its  most  healthful 
existence. 

The  list  of  out-door  sports  and  exercises  in  which  the  fair  sex  can 
engage  with  health  and  pleasure  includes  walking,  rowing,  swim- 
ming, skating — on  the  ice  and  on  parlor  rollers — archery,  lawn 
tennis  and  croquet.  The  prominent  in-door  recreative  exercises  and 
games  include  calisthenics,  bowling,  billiards,  chess,  draughts,  back- 
gammon, dominoes,  and  such  games  with  cards  as  whist  and  crib- 
bage.  It  would  require  too  much  space,  and  be  beyond  the  intended 
scope  of  this  work,  to  introduce  into  the  descriptive  chapters  of  each 
.sport  or  exercise  any  but  the  mere  elementary  instructions  in  re- 
gard to  acquiring  a  practical  knowledge  of  them.  This  we  now 
proceed  to  do  briefly  and  to  the  point : 

LAWN    TENNIS. 

The  now  fashionable  game  of  Lawn  Tennis  is  essentially  a  field 
sport  adapted  for  ladies.  Its  requirements  are  not  such  as  to  de- 
mand an  amount  of  physical  exertion  for  which  an  ordinarily  healthy 
girl  is  not  capable  ;  and  its  playing  rules,  too,  are  not  so  intricate  as 
to  require  special  mental  ability  to  fully  comprehend  them.  The  bat 
used  in  the  game  is  light  and  easy  to  handle,  even  by  delicate  hands, 
while  the  rubber  ball  played  with — weighing  not  quite  two  ounces — 
is  quite  harmless,  even  if  it  should  happen  to  hit  the  face  of  a 
player.     The  game  affords  the  most  enjoyable  exercise  of  any  field 


SPORT.S    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES. 


89 


game  in  vogue  in  which  ladies  can  participate,  and  it  can  be  readily- 
played  on  a  plot  of  level  ground  seventy-five  feet  by  thirty  in  length 
and  width.  The  game  can  be  played  by  two,  three  or  four  ladies, 
either  with  one  player  on  each  side,  or  two  on  a  side,  or  one  against 
two.  The  following  are  the  lines  and  measurements  of  a  lawn  tennis 
court,  according  to  the  laws  of  the  United  States  Lawn  Tennis  Asso- 
ciation : 


•  LENGTH    --18  FT- 

>• 


>< 

X 

X                                               X 

LEFT        ^ 

COURT. 

= 

RIGHT 

COURT. 

00 

3> 

3D 

<: 

If 

1  c/> 

c 

«"■ 

m 

c 

0 

Z 

r- 

S» 

-i 

m 

z 

z 

?•-• 

m 

r. 

z- 

*" 

HALT     COURT 

LI  K  r 

0  ^  — « 

a 

-  ^  — « 

0 

rt 

-1 

?^? 

0 

0 

3 

^  ■* 

, 

r^ 

c 

^ 

c 

m 

Si 

z: 

H 

sr 

^ 

,"■ 

^■5 

m 

RIGHT      r^ 

COURT. 

LEFT 

COURT. 

SIDE 

L'MC 

X 

> 

c 

> 

<                                                       X 

■18  n 


X 


-21  FT X 39   FT- 

DIAGRAM    OF    LAWN    TK.NNIS    COURT. 


The  appended  cut  shows  a  lawn  tennis  field  with  four  players  en- 
gaged in  a  match. 

When  two  players  engage  in  a  match  the  game  is  played  as  fol- 
lows :  A  begins  play  by  taking  up  her  position  at  the  outer  corner 
of  the  right-hand  court,  and  standing  with  one  foot  on  one  side  of 
the  "service"  line  and  the  other  foot  on  the  other  side,  she  takes 
her  bat  in  one  hand  and  the  ball  in  the  other,  and  proceeds  to  ''serve'' 
the  ball  to  her  opponent,  who  stands  in  her  right-hand  court  on  the 
other  side  of  the  net,  ready  to  return  the  ball  bade  lo  the  server's 
court.  The  "server"  must  bat  the  ball  so  that  it  will  go  over  the 
net  and  fall  within  the  right  court  of  her  opponent's  field.  If  she 
fails  to  do  this,  and  the  ball  either  hits  the  net  or  goes  beyond  tlie 
court  lines,  a  '' fauW  is  recorded,  and  two  "faults"  in  succession 
count  as  an  '"ace"  against  the   "server."      If  the   ball   is  rightly 


90 


THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 


"  served,"  however,  then  the  server's  opponent  must  endeavor  to  bat 
the  served  ball — after  it  has  touched  the  ground  within  the  court 
once  and  before  it  touches  the  ground  a  second  time — so  that  it  be 
returned  over  the  net  to  the  server's  ground.  Faihng  to  do  this,  an 
"  ace  "  is  scored  to  the  credit  of  the  server.  If  the  player,  returning 
the  ball,  sends  it  over  the  net,  and  it  falls  anywhere  within  the  outer 
lines  of  the  courts,  the  server  has  then  to  return  it  over  the  net  back 
again,  and  in  doing  this  she  can  either  bat  it  after  the  first  bound,  or 


PLAYING   TENNIS. 


before  it  touches  the  ground — a  batted  fly  ball  being  known  as  a 
"  volley."  The  game  is  scored  as  follows :  The  first  ace  made 
counts  15,  the  second  30,  the  third  40  and  the  fourth  gives  game. 
The  player  who  first  scores  six  games  wins  the,  first  "  set "  of  the 
match,  and  two  sets  won,  out  of  three  played  or  to  be  played,  v/ins  the 
match.  When  both  players  have  scored  "40,"  or  four  aces  each,  then 
"  deuce  "  is  called,  and  the  player  who  scores  the  next  ace  after  the 
40  is  credited  with  vantage,  and  the  next  ace  in  succession  gives  the 


SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES. 


91 


game.  In  order  to  learn  the  rules  in  detail  the  beginner  should  pro- 
cure a  copy  of  the  Association  rules.  The  above  description,  how- 
ever, will  suffice  to  initiate  a  novice  in  the  elements  of  the  game. 

ARCHER  Y. 

There  is  no  field  sport  a  lady  can  engage  in  which  is  so  well  cal- 
culated to  induce  a  healthy  development  of  the  chest  and  arms,  or  to 
impart  grace  of  movement,  as  the  recreation  of  the  Archery  field. 


ARCHERY. 


To  manage  her  beau  well  in  the  parlor  is  an  art  every  lively  girl  of 
course  delights  in ;  yet  to  handle  her  bow  creditably  in  front  of  the 
target  at  an  archery  meeting  is  to  many  equally  attractive.  Practice 
with  the  bow  and  arrow  gives  a  girl  the  ver}^  kind  of  exercise  she  is 
most  in  need  of,  and  that  is.  exercise  of  the  muscles  of  the  chest. 
Of  course,  a  class  of  calisthenic  exercises  will  produce  the  same 
result,  but  in  a  different  manner,  the  latter  being  more  mechanical 


92  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

and  less  recreative  than  that  of  archery  practice,  there  being  a 
decided  difference  between  the  methodical  work  of  a  calisthenic  class 
and  the  pleasurable  excitement  incident  to  shooting  with  a  bow  and 
arrow  at  a  target,  surrounded  by  all  the  attractions  of  a  field  archery 
meeting.  One  is,  in  a  measure,  work,  while  the  other  is  enjoyable 
exercise  and  play;  and  exercise  that  is  not  fully  recreative  in  its 
nature  is  not  very  beneficial  in  a  sanitary  point  of  view.  Standing  in 
front  of  an  archery  target  thirty  yards  distant,  and  watching  the 
movements  of  a  practised  archeress,  as  she  grasps  her  bow,  places  an 
arrow  in  position,  and  then  with  comparative  ease  sends  it  flying  to 
the  centre  of  the  "  gold,"  the  whole  action,  with  its  final  result,  looks 
so  easy  of  attainment  that  a  casual  observer  is  deceived  in  an  estimate 
of  the  amount  of  patient  practice  that  is  necessary  to  accomplish  the 
feat.  But  when  the  young  novice  tries  her  hands  at  this  apparently 
simple  act,  and  realizes  by  practical  experiment  what  difficulties  beset 
her,  and  what  a  number  of  thincrs  she  has  to  learn  before  she  can 
even  hit  the  target  at  all,  not  to  mention  the  "  gold,"  her  respect  for 
the  sport  increases  in  the  ratio  of  the  obstacles  she  meets  with.  To 
become  expert  in  the  use  of  her  bow  gives  a  girl  of  brains  something 
to  reflect  upon,  something  to  study  up  and  to  analyze  as  to  cause 
and  effect;  and  with  this  naturally  comes  hearty  respect  for  the  art 
and  a  love  for  the  enjoyable  excitement  it  yields.  Any  novice  in 
archery  who  has  ultimately  achieved  success  will  tell  you  what  a 
thrill  of  pleasure  she  felt  when,  after  weeks  of  disappointing  practice, 
blunders  in  handling  her  bow,  mistakes  in  "nocking"  her  arrows, 
errors  of  getting  into  "  bad  form  "  in  taking  up  her  position  to  shoot, 
and  in  other  ways  experiencing  all  the  little  shocks  to  one's  amour 
propre  which  novices  are  heirs  to,  she  all  at  once  gets  into  "  good 
form,"  and  as  a  result  sees  her  arrow  enter  the  magic  circle  of  the 
"  gold,"  and  that,  too,  not  by  chance  but  by  the  skill  which  her  final 
mastery  of  the  art  yields.  It  is  then  that  the  exclamation  comes, 
"  Isn't  that  perfectly  elegant  ?  "  It  is  then,  too,  that  she  has  passed  the 
outer  works  of  archery  and  captured  its  citadel.  In  no  sport  a  lady 
can  engage  in  does  the  old  saying  that  "  practice  makes  perfect " 


SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES.  93 

apply  with  such  force  as  to  archery.  There  are  so  many  little  but 
important  details  to  be  attended  to  which  constant  practice  can  alone 
make  you  properly  familiar  with,  that  any  regular  rule  for  special 
observance  fails  to  be  advantageously  applicable.  It  is  all  very  well  to 
put  down  in  a  book  of  instructions  in  the  art  that  the  young  novice 
must  do  this,  that  and  the  other ;  but  it  is  by  practical  experience  in 
the  field  only,  and  frequent  practice  at  that,  that  she  will  be  enabled 
to  overcome  the  obstacles  she  has  to  encounter  in  her  efforts  to 
become  an  expert. 

The  first  thing  to  be  attended  to  after  familiarizing  herself  with  the 
handling  of  the  bow  and  arrows  is  to  bear  in  mind  the  important 
fact  that  the  word  "  aim,"  as  applied  in  all  other  methods  of  shooting, 
is,  in  archery,  inapplicable.  In  shooting  with  a  bow  you  look  solely 
at  the  centre  of  the  target,  and  not  to  the  point  of  your  arrow  or  at 
any  part  of  your  bow.  From  the  moment  that  you  have  your  bow 
and  arrow  in  position  and  in  readiness  for  the  final  "  loose  " — letting 
go  the  string — your  sight  or  aim  must  be  upon  the  centre  of  the 
target.  The  difference  is,  that  in  archery  you  feci  your  aim,  as  it 
were,  while  in  shooting  with  a  rifle  you  sec  it.  This  aiming  b)- 
instinct  can  only  be  attained  by  constant  practice.  The  details  to  be 
made  familiar  with  before  you  can  even  send  your  first  arrow  into  any 
part  of  the  target  are  enough  to  engage  one's  attention,  outside  of 
the  mental  training  necessary  in  learning  to  shoot  with  special 
accuracy  of  aim.  To  hold  your  bow  firmly  and  steadily,  as  if  it  were 
in  a  vice,  is  the  first  letter  of  the  archer's  alphabet.  The  second  is  to 
bend  your  bow  to  the  arrow's  head  properly,  and  the  third  is  to 
"  loose  "  the  cord  from  the  fingers  of  your  right  hand  at  the  proper 
moment.  This  is  the  A.  B.  C.  of  archery.  Then  come  the  placing 
of  the  arrow  in  position  and  seeing  that  it  is  "  nocked  " — attached  to 
the  cord — in  the  right  place  on  the  string ;  and  also  that  the  right 
feather  of  the  arrow  is  uppermost,  and  that  the  tips  of  your  fingers  are 
properly  placed  on  the  string  ready  for  the  full  and  the  final  "  loose." 
How  to  stand  at  ease  while  using  your  bow  is  also  an  important 
matter.     You  do  not  face  the  target,  as  in  shooting  a  rifle,  but  you 


94  THE-  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

stand  as  described  in  the  dueling  code,  with  the  left  side  of  your 
body  facing-  the  target,  so  that  in  looking  at  the  target  it  is  with 
your  face  turned  toward  your  left  shoulder.  The  left  arm,  which 
grasps  the  bow,  must  be  kept  steady,  and  held  out  with  firm, 
unmoving  muscles.  This  arm  is  the  lever  on  which  you  depend  for 
a  straight  delivery  of  the  arrow.  As  it  is  raised  or  lowered,  so  will 
your  arrow  fly  high  or  low.  If  the  arm,  too,  be  allowed  to  bend, 
the  power  to  draw  the  bow  to  the  arrow's  head  steadily  is  lessened. 
Then,  too,  there  is  the  action  of  the  right  arm  in  pulling  the  cord 
forward.  In  doing  this,  unused  muscles  are  brought  into  play,  and 
at  first  the  motion  will  feci  like  that  of  a  constrained  position. 
Ladies  whose  chest  muscles  are  little  exercised,  and  whose  arms 
are  weak  from  want  of  employment,  find  that  this  new  exercise  comes 
rather  hard  upon  them,  but  its  physical  advantages  are  sufficiently 
great  to  repay  all  the  pains  taken  in  the  training.  When  you  have 
learned  to  pull  the  cord  correctly,  you  will  have  to  attend  to  letting  it 
slip  from  your  fingers.  In  the  first  place,  you  must  wear  "  tips  " — 
leather  coverings  to  three  of  your  fingers — and  these  should  be  soft 
and  pliable  enough  to  allow  the  string  to  slip  from  them  easily.  In 
holding  the  cord,  too,  the  correct  way  is  to  let  the  end  of  your  arrow 
lie  between  your  first  and  second  finger,  just  sufficiently  to  prevent 
its  slipping  from  the  cord.  Finally,  stand  steady ;  hold  your  left 
arm  out  straight  and  firm  ;  look  only  at  the  "  gold,"  as  you  bend 
your  bow,  and  the  moment  your  eye  is  on  the  centre  of  the  target, 
and  your  bow  is  bent  to  the  arrow's  head,  loosen  your  finger-hold  on 
the  cord,  with  a  quick,  easy  motion,  and  if  all  your  movements  have 
been  made  correctly  and  in  harmony  with  the  thought  in  your  rnind, 
that  moment  will  see  the  arrow  go  direct  to  the  "  gold,"  and  just  as 
often,  too,  as  your  thought  and  motion  are  in  harmony. 

CROQUET. 

There  is  no  game  ladies  take  part  in  which  so  fully  affords  an 
observer  of  character  facilities  for  discovering  the  real  disposition  of  a 
woman,  her  ladv-like  manners  and  the  feelings    of  true  refinement 


SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES.  95 

she  possesses,  as  Croquet  does.  It  is  a  dreadfully  effective  method 
of  testing  a  girl's  temper,  and  few  go  through  the  ordeal  without 
failure.  Croquet  is  unlike  every  other  game  in  vogue,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  in  no  two  cities  or  places  in  Europe  or  America,  where  it  is 
played  at  all,  is  it  played  under  the  same  code  of  rules.  In  the 
United  States  there  are  the  Newport  rules,  the  Saratoga  rules,  the 
New  York  rules,  the  Boston  rules,  the  Philadelphia  rules,  and  in  fact 
every  place's  rules  as  well  as  every  club's  rules,  each  varynng  in 
essential  points  of  play,  all  of  which  necessarily  leads  to  annoying 
differences  of  interpretation  in  every  contest  in  which  players  from 
different  cities  take  pari.  In  England  the  English  books  of  in- 
struction in  the  game  agree  only  in  one  thing,  and  that  is,  in  the 
statement  that  "there  are  hardly  two  lawns  in  England  where 
croquet  is  played  in  the  same  manner  and  under  the  same  rules  in 
every  respect."  This  of  course  brings  about  a  decidedly  aggravating 
condition  of  things,  and  it  has  been  the  one  cause  which  has  led  to 
the  decline  of  croquet  in  popularity  as  a  field-game  worthy  of  taking 
any  special  pains  to  become  accomplished  in.  The  prevailing 
sentiment  in  regard  to  it  is,  "  Oh,  don't  let  us  play  croquet:  we  shall 
only  get  to  quarreling  over  it."  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  game  in  its 
elements,  so  simple  and  easy  of  attainment,  and  one,  moreover, 
requiring  so  little  physical  exertion  to  play  it  under  the  ordinary' 
rules  of  play,  as  to  cause  it  to  fill  up  a  gap  that  would  otherwise 
leave  a  void  in  field-sports  for  ladies. 

Given  a  very  smooth,  close-cut  grass  lawn,  quite  level,  and  so 
kept  as  to  allow  a  ball  to  be  accurately  rolled  on  it ;  with  first-class 
mallets,  balls  and  hoops,  and  well-defined  and  scientific  rules  for 
contests,  and  the  means  for  deeply  interesting  play,  marked  by  skillful 
strategy  as  well  as  accurate  mechanical  movements,  are  afforded, 
which  are  well  adapted  to  make  very  attractive  field-sport.  This  fact 
can  be  reali2ied  by  ocular  demonstration  by  a  visit  to  the  croquet 
lawn  of  Brooklyn  Prospect  Park  any  fine  afternoon  of  the  spring, 
summer  or  autumn  months,  when  the  scientific  croquet  players  of 
Brooklyn  are  out  on  the  lawn  indulging  in  their  favorite  game.     The 


96  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

contrast  between  the  play  of  these  experts  and  that  of  the  ordinar>^ 
picnic  girls'  croquet  parties  at  the  park  is  of  course  very  great ;  but 
it  illustrates  very  fully  the  great  difference  between  what  croquet  is 
capable  of  in  first-class  hands  and  what  it  actually  is  as  it  is  simply 
and  ordinarily  played. 

Croquet  is  beyond  question  a  great  courting  and  flirting  game  for 
ladies.  You  can  play  and  talk  at  the  same  time.  Then  you  have 
such  jolly  rests  between  the  turns  for  playing  that  ample  opportunity 
is  afforded  for  just  the  quiet  little  bit  of  talking  together  which  girls 
love  to  have  with  their  beaux  on  a  field  of  a  summer  afternoon. 

The  essential  difference  in  the  method  of  playing  croquet  may  be  said 
to  be  confined  chiefly  to  the  two  ways  of  batting  the  ball  with  the 
mallet.  These  are  the  side  stroke,  by  which  a  girl  hits  the  ball  as  it 
lies  on  the  ground  at  her  side,  and  the  front  or  straight  stroke,  in  which 
she  hits  the  ball  while  it  is  directly  in  front  of  her.  This  latter  is  a  diffi- 
cult stroke  for  a  girl  to  make  accurately,  on  account  of  her  dress.  We 
go  in  for  the  rule  which  admits  of  any  way  of  hitting  the  ball  with 
the  mallet  which  the  player  finds  most  advantageous.  Next  on  the 
list  of  differences  in  the  rules  is  that  in  which  one  club  code  prohibits 
the  player  from  moving  her  own  ball  when  she  croquets  that  of  her 
opponent,  while  another  club's  code  admits  of  the  ball  being  moved 
with  that  on  which  the  croquet  is  taken ;  the  one  being  known  as 
"  tight  croquet  "  and  the  other  as  "  loose  croquet."  In  this  respect, 
too,  we  favor  the  rule  leaving  it  optional  with  the  player  to  use  either 
the  "tight"  or  the  "loose"  form.  The  loose  croquet  admits  of  carom 
strokes,  as  in  billiards,  either  by  playing  a  "  following  shot "  or  a 
simple  carom,  thus  affording  opportunities  for  strategic  play  which 
"tight  croquet"  does  not  admit  of 

There  is  one  peculiarity  of  croquet,  and  that  is,  it  can  be  played  on 
any  piece  of  ground  or  turfy  field  on  which  it  is  possible  to  make  a 
ball  roll ;  but,  of  course,  skillful  play  would  be  impossible  on  a  rough 
or  uneven  plot  of  ground.  The  turfy  fields  of  the  croquet  clubs 
which  play  at  Brooklyn  Prospect  Park  are  like  billiard  tables 
almost,  so  much  care  is  there  given  to  keeping  the  lawns  well  rolled 


98  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

and  cut.  Those  who  desire  to  see  a  smooth,  turfy  field  for  their 
games  should  see  that  the  grass  is  frequently  cut,  as  then  the  small, 
short  grass  will  grow  up,  in  the  place  of  the  long  weedy  grass  of  lawns 
not  frequently  mowed.  A  croquet  ground  and  a  lawn  tennis  field  can 
be  made  on  the  same  plot  of  ground,  as  both  need  about  the  same 
space,  as  well  as  the  same  smooth  and  level  surface  of  grassy  turf. 
We  give  a  picture  of  an  English  croquet  ground  in  a  private  park„ 
which  in  size  and  finished  surface  would  also  make  an  admirable 
tennis  lawn. 

The  dimensions  of  a  croquet  ground  regularly  laid  out  should  be 
one  hundred  feet  in  length  by  sixty  feet  in  width.  As  to  the  ma- 
terials of  the  game,  croquet  sets  can  be  purchased  from  three  dollars 
a  set  up  to  twenty.  A  so-called  cheap  set,  as  a  rule,  is  an  abomina- 
tion in  the  sight  of  an  expert.  The  balls  get  dry  and  split ;  the  mal- 
lets come  off  the  handles  and  the  hoops  get  bent  out  of  shape  easily. 
In  regard  to  the  use  of  "  clips  "  to  place  on  the  hoops  a  player  makes, 
these  are  only  necessary  when  more  than  two  girls  play  a  game,  their 
use  avoiding  disputes  as  to  whether  a  hoop  has  been  made  or  not. 
There  is,  of  course,  a  difference  in  the  rules  as  to  the  placing  of  the 
hoops,  as  well  as  to  the  number  used — ten  is  the  limit  as  to  number,, 
while  fewer  than  eight  are  never  used.  The  appended  diagrams  show 
the  three  most  prominent  forms  of  placing  the  hoops.  The  terms 
used  in  croquet  are  chiefly  as  follows:  "Croquet"  (pronounced 
*'  crowkay  ") — To  croquet  a  ball  is  to  strike  your  own  ball  with  the 
mallet  when  it  is  in  contact  with  that  of  your  opponent.  "  Roquet  " 
(pronounced  "  rokay  ") — To  roquet  a  ball  is  simply  to  strike  another 
ball.  "  Wired  " — Your  ball  is  "  wired  "  when  the  wire  of  the  hoop 
prevents  the  stroke.  "  Peg  " — To  peg  a  ball  is  to  strike  the  home- 
peg  in  proper  order. 

Of  the  three  diagrams  given  that  of  C  presents  the  most  difficulties 
in  successfully  running  the  round  of  the  hoops.  Diagram  A  does  best 
for  a  small  field,  and  that  of  B  is  the  most  simple  of  the  three.  The 
contestants  in  a  garne  of  croquet  number  from  two  to  eight.  Gen- 
erally, the  most  interesting  game  is  that  in  which  sides  of  two  each 
take  part. 


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(99) 


lOO  THE  heart^istonk;  or,  life  at  home. 

CALISTHENICS. 
Calisthenics  is  the  name  given  to  the  lighter  class  of  gymnastic 
exercises,  which  are  especially  adapted  for  ladies.  That  such  exer- 
cises are  necessary  for  girls,  especially  from  the  age  of  six  to  fifteen, 
has  been  fully  proved  by  experience,  the  neglect  of  them  in  early 
girlhood  being  a  great  drawback  to  growth  in  physical  health. 
The  trouble  with  most  of  the  games  girls  indulge  in  when  mere  chil- 
dren is  that  they  are  simply  the  medium  for  the  exercise  of  only  one 
or  two  sets  of  muscles  of  the  body,  chiefly  those  of  the  legs  and  arms, 
and  not  much  of  the  latter.  In  calisthenics  there  is  a  variety  of  move- 
ments which  brings  into  play  every  muscle  of  the  body,  and  that,  too, 
not  in  the  rather  violent  manner  young  men  in  the  gymnastic  classes 
are  too  frequently  subjected  to,  but  in  a  way  calculated  to  gradually 
develop  the  lighter  muscular  fabric  of  a  girl's  system.  What  with 
skipping  ropes  and  trundling  hoops,  girls  from  six  to  twelve  have  the 
means  of  healthy  out-door  exercise,  but  only  to  a  limited  extent. 
As  they  get  into  their  teens  these  recreations  have  hitherto  been 
replaced  by  that  of  dancing,  as  a  general  thing ;  and  even  then  only 
under  such  drawbacks  as  those  of  heated  ball-rooms  and  the  vitiated 
atmosphere  of  parlors  on  party  occasions,  both  of  which  entirely 
obviate  the  sanitary  benefits  of  the  exercise  itself  It  is  from  the 
calisthenic  class  exercises  that  girls  in  their  teens,  as  well  as  ladies 
approaching  the  adult  period,  find  the  benefits  they  have  previously 
been  deprived  of  since  they  left  off  "play"  as  mere  school-girls,  and 
took  on  those  sedentary  habits  of  life  peculiar  to  fashionable  society 
girls.  Thanks  to  the  growing  popularity  of  ladies'  cut-door  sports, 
such  as  lawn  tennis,  rowing,  archery,  equestrian  exercise  and  the  like, 
the  old  sedentary  mode  of  young  lady  life  is  being  greatly  modified, 
and  American  girls,  under  the  improved  method,  bid  fair  soon  to 
show  as  healthy  physiques  as  the  girls  of  the  leisure-class  of  English 
society  do.  There  is  one  special  benefit  to  be  derived  from  the  system- 
atic exercises  of  the  ladies'  calisthenic  class  of  a  g^^mnasium,  and  that 
is,  that  for  the  two  or  three  hours  of  these  exercises  the  ladies  are 
freed  from  the  restraints  impo.sed  on  their  bodily  movements  by  the 


SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES.  lOI 

fashionable  costume  of  the  day.  Clothed  in  the  loose  folds  of  their 
gymnasium  costume,  with  corsets  unlaced,  and  freedom  given  them 
for  lung  expansion ;  with  feet  in  their  natural  position  and  relieved 
from  the  stilted  heels,  and  in  every  respect  with  room  given  them  for 
the  play  of  cvcry^  muscle  of  their  bodies,  a  delightful  relaxation  from 
the  bonds  of  fashion  is  enjoyed  ;  and  this  freedom  from  dress  restraints, 
combined  with  the  invigorating  effects  of  the  exercise  itself,  imparts 
new  life  and  action  to  the  blood  and  thereby  strengthens  the  vital 
functions  of  the  system.  Of  course,  calisthcnic  exercises  are  not  so 
necessary  to  those  girls  who  frequent  the  lawn  tennis  or  archery  fields, 
or  who  are  to  be  seen  rowing  on  the  lake  or  riding  on  horseback  on 
the  park  drives,  as  they  arc  to  the  confined  and  unexercised  fashion- 
able girls  who  are  such  valuable  patrons  of  the  medical  fraternity. 
And  just  here,  by  the  way,  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  a  singular  unan- 
imity of  opinion  seems  to  exist  among  a  certain  class  of  fashionable 
doctors  in  regard  to  the  disadvantages  of  this,  that  and  the  other 
out-door  exercise,  and  of  the  injurious  effects  of  this  or  that  in-door 
game  on  their  young  lady  patients.  Does  it  arise  from  the  fact  that 
such  indulgence  in  healthy  recreation  is  calculated  to  lessen  the 
amount  of  sundry  yearly  medical  bills  ? 

Late  improvements  in  the  paraphernalia  of  calisthenic  class  exerci.ses 
present  facilities  for  home  recreation  of  this  character  in  which  the 
girls  of  a  single  family  can  benefit  to  an  extent  but  little  less  than 
in  the  regular  gymnasiums.  What  the  majority  of  girls  most  need 
in  the  way  of  such  exercises,  however,  is  the  development  of  the  chest 
muscles  with  a  view  to  healthy  lung  expansion,  and  this  is  attainable 
in  a  parlor  or  the  home  garden-plat.  How  many  a  girl  is  there  to  be 
seen  who,  by  her  dancing  practice,  has  trained  up  finely  developed 
nether  limbs,  but  who,  from  the  total  neglect  of  the  muscles  of  the 
.arms  and  chest,  is  left  round-shouldered  and  with  thin  arms  out  of  al! 
proportion  to  the  exerci-sed  limbs  of  her  body ! 

SKATING. 

Skat.ng  is,  beyond   question,  the   inost   graceful   sport  a  girl  can 
engage   in,  and   as   an   out-door   exercise    it   has   no   superior   in    its 


I02  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OK,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

pleasurable  excitement  and  delightfully  recreative  features.  It  is 
eminently  a  social  sport,  too,  one  suitable  for  the  great  majority ; 
inasmuch  as  in  every  other  recreation  there  is  more  or  less  isolation 
from  social  intercourse  during  a  game  or  a  contest,  while  in  skating 
social  enjoyment  is  a  prominent  characteristic.  In  fact,  so  much  is 
this  the  case,  that  the  sociality  of  a  popular  skating  lake  has  come  to 
be  as  proverbial  as  that  of  a  New  England  Thanksgiving  gathering. 
Skating,  too,  when  viewed  in  a  sanitary  light,  is  a  sport  meriting 
public  approval.  Aside  from  its  recreative  objects,  its  advantages 
to  health  are  manifest,  especially  as  regards  the  fair  sex.  One  of  its 
prominent  benefits  is  the  constant  open  air  exercise  it  yields,  and 
that,  too,  at  a  season  when  the  atmosphere  is  mostly  charged  with 
life-giving  oxygen.  In  this  special  respect  skating  yields  the  most 
beneficial  results  to  young  girls,  who,  as  a  class,  are  great  sufferers 
from  the  want  of  out-door  recreation;  their  neglect  of  it  being  a 
fertile  cause  of  the  delicate  and  sickly  constitutions  whicb  are  so 
numerous  among  the  wealthy  class  of  metropolitan  society.  It  may 
be  said  with  truth  that  two-thirds  of  the  lives  of  the  majority  of  our 
wealthy  city  girls  are  passed  in  the  poisonous  atmosphere  of  furnace- 
heated  parlors,  sitting-rooms  and  bed-rooms,  with  the  result  of  that 
prevention  of  the  necessary  inhalation  of  oxygen  and  exhalation  of 
carbon  which  is  of  such  vital  importance  to  the  health  of  every 
human  being. 

The  essentials  for  the  full  enjoyment  of  skating  are  good  ice  on  a 
safe  sheet  of  water,  such  as  our  park  lakes  provide ;  a  pair  of  model 
American  club  skates — the  best  in  the  world ;  low,  flat-heeled  skating 
boots,  fitting  snugly  to  the  foot  and  with  soles  thick  enough  to  hold 
the  skate  clamps,  together  with  a  warm,  comfortable  and  appropriate 
skating-dress  and  cap.  In  learning  to  skate  you  must  bear  in  mind 
the  fact  that,  like  learning  any  other  special  art,  there  is  nothing 
which  will  aid  you  so  much  as  confidence  in  your  ability  to  ultimately 
accomplish  what  you  are  about  to  undertake.  Confidence  is  especially 
essential  in  learning  the  first  elements  of  skating.  In  this  respect  it 
is  like  learning  to  swim,  the  fear  of  falling  while  on  your  skates  being 


SPORTS    AND   "GAMES    FOR    LADIES. 


103 


similar    in    its    deterring  effects    to    the    fear  of  sinking  when    first 
attempting  to  swim  in  the  water. 

The  first  lesson  in  skating  is  to  learn  to  walk  on  your  skates. 
When  on  skates  you  are  balancing  yourself  on  a  very  narrow  edge, 
and  on  an  edge,  too,  which  slips  forward  and  backward  very 
readily,  but  not  sideways.  First,  stand  firmly  on  your  skates;  then 
learn  to  slide  forward  with  your  right  foot,  while  pushing  yourself 
with  your  left,  thus : 


orO 


This  is  the  first  motion  made.  It  is  followed  bj'  the  alternate  use 
of  both  feet  as  sliders  and  propellers,  and  as  you  advance  in  this  you 
learn  to  do  the  movement  known  as  the  "  inside  edge,"  which  pro- 
duces the  following  curves : 


In  learning  to  balance  yourself  on  skates,  you  will  find  that  you 
at  once  bring  unused  muscles  of  the  ankles  and  lower  limbs  into 
play,  with  the  necessary  result  of  somewhat  painful  exercise.  But 
this  soon  wears  off,  if  it  be  not  too  long  indulged  in  at  a  time. 
Frequent  rest  for  the  newly  exercised  muscles  yield  more  satisfactory 
results  than  too  much  practice  at  one  time.  The  fundamental  basis 
of  all  expert  eft'brts  on  skates  is  the  movements  made  while  bearing 
on  the  outer  edge  of  the  skate  on  the  ice.  This  once  attained,  you 
liolJ  the  key  to  all  the  variations  of  the  fancy  skater's  programme. 
Confidence  in  your  ability  to  lean  on  the  outer  edge  of  your  skate  is 
everything.  The  very  fear  that  }'ou  will  surely  fall  if  you  attempt  it 
is  the  cau.se  of  falling.  "  Nothing  venture,  nothing  have  "  is  a  motto 
which  comes  into  play  admirably  in  practicing  to  skate  the  "  outer 
roll."  The  lines  of  this  movement  are  the  very  reverse,  of  course, 
of  the  inside  edge  motion  or  "  inside  roll,"  as  will  be  seen  by  tlie 
appended  diagram  : 


104  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 


If  your  skate  has  a  keen  edge — a  requisite  in  skating  whether  for  th  j 
expert  or  the  novice — it  is  just  as  safe  to  lean  over  on  the  outer  edge 
as  on  the  inner.  You  imagine  it  is  not  until  you  have  learned  to  do 
it ;  but  when  you  have,  one  will  be  found  as  simple  as  the  other. 
Once  having  acquired  the  art  of  the  outside  roll,  you  enter  the 
charmed  circle  of  the  fancy  skater's  arena.  Then  comes  the  outside 
roll  backward,  with  the  various  circles,  and  these  movements  learned, 
you  know  the  grammar  of  skating,  and  need  only  to  see  the  expert 
go  through  all  his  fancy  movements  to  become  an  accomplished 
skater.  A  prettier  sight  than  a  girl  in  appropriate  skating  costume 
doing  the  outside  roll  is  difficult  to  find  in  the  winter  season. 

Skating  on  rollers  varies  materially  from  using  skates  on  the  ice. 
In  the  first  place,  in  roller-skating  there  is  none  of  that  strain  on 
the  muscles  of  the  ankles  there  is  in  ice  skating,  simply  because 
while  standing  on  the  rollers  you  stand  on  a  flat  surface  the  same  as 
on  the  floor ;  with  the  one  exception,  however,  that  you  are  liable  to 
slip  forward  or  backward  on  the  rollers — but  not  sideways — the 
same  as  you  are  on  skates.  There  is  another  essential  difference 
between  the  two  methods  of  skating,  however,  which  it  is  veiy  neces- 
sary to  understand  in  learning  to  skate  on  the  rollers  after  having 
learned  to  skate  on  the  ice,  and  that  is,  that  the  roller  skate  is  directed 
in  its  forward  movement  by  your  actions  in  balancing  yourself;  that 
is,  if  you  wish  to  do  the  outer  roll,  you  lean  on  your  skate  to  the 
right,  not  force  it  in  that  direction  by  your  foot,  and  to  do  the  inside' 
you  lean  to  the  inside.  In  learning  to  do  the  outside  roll  on  parlor 
skates,  you  will  find  that  confidence  is  everything.  You,  of  course, 
cannot  do  fancy  skating  on  any  roller  skates  such  as  boys  and  girls 
use  in  the  street,  but  only  on  those  of  the  Plimpton  patent  used  in 
the  skating  rinks.  There  are  hundreds  of  variations  of  fancy  skating 
movements  capable  of  accomplishment  on  ihe  Plimpton  rollers,  but 
which  are  impossible  on  the  ordinary  street  roller  skates. 


SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES.  IO5 

WALKING. 
"  Let  us  go  out  for  a  walk  "  is  a  common  exclamation  among  our 
young  society  girls  of  the  period,  but  the  phrase  has  a  variety  of 
interpretations.  With  one  class  of  girls  it  simply  refers  to  a  leisurely 
stroll  along  the  most  frequented  promenade  of  a  city,  to  look  in  at 
the  shops,  or  to  observe  the  latest  out-door  dress  fashions.  With 
another  class  it  means  a  walk  through  the  fashionable  portion  of  the 
city,  in  pairs,  of  a  party  of  boarding-school  girls,  under  the  watchful 
charge  of  some  ancient  teacher,  with  the  chance  of  taking  a  sly 
glance  at  some  masculine  favorite  en  route.  But  walking  for  health- 
ful exercise  alone,  and  in  a  way  to  receive  all  tlfe  benefit  accruing 
from  it,  is  too  rarely  attended  to.  The  ordinary  walking  done  by 
ladies  is  not  what  walking  should  be,  by  any  means.  In  the  first 
place,  to  become  a  good  walker — in  the  pedestrian's  acceptation  of 
the  term — thorough  attention  must  be  paid  to  all  the  established 
rules  governing  the  exercise,  such  as  taking  the  regulation  step  in 
walking,  swinging  the  arms  properly,  walking  with  upright  form  and 
with  a  thorough  harmony  of  movement  of  all  your  lin.bs,  and  not  to 
walk,  as  most  ladies  do,  with  their  arms  kept  in  a  cramped  position 
at  their  sides,  by  their  cloaks  or  shawls,  thereby  obliging  them  to  walk 
with  a  sort  of  side  swing,  like  the  waddling  of  a  duck — a  style 
peculiar  to  the  city  promenading  of  most  of  our  fashionable  girls. 
Then,  too,  in  order  to  walk  propcrl3^  the  lady  pedestrian  'must  wear 
walking  shoes  or  boots,  with  flat,  low  heels  no  thicker  than  the 
soles  of  the  shoe,  and  easy  fitting  to  the  natural  form  of  the  foot. 
Walking  for  pleasurable  and  healthful  exercise  while  wearing  high- 
heeled,  thin-soled  and  pointed-toe  boots  or  shoes  is  next  to  im- 
possible. We  laugh  at  the  Chinese  fashionable  belle,  whom  the 
custom  of  her  country  obliges  to  have  her  feet  encased  in  shoes  so 
much  too  small  as  to  induce  a  distortion  which  renders  walking,  even 
a  short  distance,  perfect  torture ;  and  yet  the  fashionable  American 
shoe  for  ladies  of  the  day  is  but  little  less  an  invention  for  deforming 
the  feet,  with  its  two-inch  heel  almost  under  the  instep,  and  of 
shape  so  pointed  as  to  cramp  and  distort  the  natural  position  of  the 


io6  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

toe.  English  ladies,  of  the  country  nobility  class,  have  their  "walk- 
ing shoes,"  as  well  as  their  "  dress  shoes,"  as  they  do  their  riding 
habits,  each  fitted  for  its  special  purpose.  They  never  think  for  a  mo- 
ment of  "doing  a  ten-mile  morning  constitutional"  in  high-heeled 
shoes.  In  fact,  they  could  not  do  it;  a  mile  walk,  even,  under  such 
circumstances,  would  cripple  them,  while  ten  miles  done  in  ap- 
propriate walking  costume  gives  them  "  good  digestion  to  wait  on 
appetite,"  and  imparts  the  roseate  hue  of  health  to  their  cheeks  and 
a  bright  lustre  to  their  eyes. 

We  are  glad  to  note  the  fact  that  ladies'  walking  parties  are  be- 
coming fashionable.  Walking  clubs,  too,  comprising  lady  and 
gentlemen  members,  are  coming  into  vogue,  the  object  in  view  being 
periodical  tramps  into  the  country,  such  walks  occupying  the  best 
hours  of  a  fine  day  and  frequently  covering  a  distance  of  twelve  or 
fifteen  miles.  What  women  are  capable  of  in  the  way  of  walking, 
under  circumstances  of  the  possession  of  a  naturally  strong  and 
healthy  physique,  is  not  only  shown  by  the  tramping  from  camp  to 
camp  by  Indian  squaws,  with  their  pappooses  on  their  backs,  but  also 
by  wealthy  English  country  ladies,  who  love  their  walking  trips  as 
much  as  they  do  their  equestrian  exercise.  Of  course,  to  the  city 
belle  of  delicate  physique,  who  breathes  only  the  vitiated  air  of  her 
boudoir  or  carriage,  the  healthy  invigoration  of  a  fair  pedestrian  is 
an  unknown  sensation.  The  former  manages  to  drawl  her  way 
through  a  fashionable  dance,  only  to  loll  in  bed  the  next  day  to  rest 
from  the  work  of  the  previous  night  at  the  party  or  the  ball.  If  a 
girl  is  of  weak  physique  or  is  sickly,  or  in  other  respects  is  unfitted 
for  the  duties  of  healthy  girlhood,  carriage  riding,  or  taking  a  car 
rather  than  walk  a  few  blocks,  is  excusable.  But  for  a  girl  who  has 
good  limbs,  healthy  lungs,  and  is  in  "good  form"  for  the  require- 
ments of  her  position  as  a  well-formed  and  healthy  young  lady,  to 
fail  in  her  share  of  walking  exercise  each  day  is  something  every 
such  individual  should  be  heartily  ashamed  of 

As  regards  certain  sanitar}'-  rules,  applicable  to  lady  pedestrians,  it 
is  worthy  of  note  to  remember  that  walking  too  soon  after  meals  is 


SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES. 


107 


not  the  regular  thing  to  do  ;  nor  should  you  proceed  to  sit  down  to 
the  table  too  soon  after  a  long  and  rather  fatiguing  walk.  Walking 
on  either  a  full  or  an  empty  stomach  is  not  according  to  hygienic 
rules.  You  must  bear  in  mind  that,  while  exercise  aids  digestion,  it 
is  only  after  the  food  has  begun  to  be  assimilated  this  assistance 
is  rendered.  To  get  up  from  a  hearty  meal  and  proceed  to  any  exer- 
cise beyond  that  of  a  quiet,  slow-strolling  kind  of  walk  is  to  un- 
healthily hurry  the  process  of  digestion.  It  is  also  objectionable  to 
healthy  digestion  to  fill  the  stomach  with  food  after  the  system  has 
been  subjected  to  over-fatigue.  A  little  rest  before  eating,  after  a 
long  walk,  is  very  essential  to  good  digestion. 

BILLIARDS. 

It  is  only  of  late  years  that  the  game  of  Billiards  has  become  a 
fashionable  pastime  with  American  ladies,  though  in  England  the 
game  has  been  in  vogue  with  the  ladies  of  the  nobility  for  nearly 
half  a  century  past.  Given  a  model  table,  a  well-fitted  billiard  room 
and  a  party  of  lady  and  gentleman  contestants  of  an  afternoon  when 
out-door  sports  are  debarred  by  the  condition  of  the  weather,  or  of 
an  evening  when  home  recreation  is  specially  in  order,  and  a  more 
attractive  in-door  game  for  a  family  party  of  both  sexes,  pleasurable 
alike  to  the  lookers  on  as  well  as  to  the  participants,  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  find.  To  learn  to  play  billiards  is  a  comparatively  easy  task 
to  some,  while  to  others  its  difficulties  seem  insurmountable.  "  Oh, 
I  can't  hit  a  ball  properly  to  save  m}-  life  !  "  is  a  familiar  exclamation 
with  the  lady  novice  at  billiards.  The  fact  is,  the  game  requires  spe- 
cial attention  given  to  the  study  of  its  details  to  learn  to  manipulate 
the  balls  with  the  cue  skillfully,  and  this  few  ladies  care  to  give.  The 
majority  want  to  learn  to  carom  at  once.  They  might  as  well  desire 
to  play  chess  as  readily  as  draughts,  or  to  do  the  outside  roll  on 
skates  the  first  time  they  put  on  a  pair  of  skates.  Some  people  pos- 
sess a  natural  aptitude  to  excel  in  the  game,  while  others  only  arrive 
at  even  a  moderate  degree  of  success  as  players  by  steady  and  indus- 
trious  application.      There   are    the    mechanical    movements    to    be 


I08  THE    hearthstone;    ok,    life    Ar    HOME. 

learned  first,  after  which  come  the  mental  calculations  of  the  forces 
governing  the  varied  motions  of  the  ball.  The  former  must  be 
learned  by  practical  experience ;  the  knowledge  of  the  latter,  or 
method  of  producing  the  effects,  may  be  borrowed  from  an  expert. 
You  cannot  play  billiards  until  you  have  learned  how  to  hold  your 
cue  and  how  to  strike  the  ball  with  its  point  accurately.  But  you 
can  learn  how  to  "  English  "  a  ball  by  simply  seeing  another  player 
do  it,  and  without  having  the  least  idea  of  the  cause  of  the  peculiar 
effect  produced.  Until,  however,  you  yourself  study  out  these 
causes  and  learn  to  base  your  shots  on  the  mental  calculation  of  the 
forces  to  be  employed,  you  will  never  become  a  really  expert  player. 
The  quickest  way  to  learn  billiards  is  to  get  a  practical  player  to  in- 
itiate you  into  the  right  method  of  holding  your  cue  and  directing  its 
stroke.  To  do  this  well  requires  just  the  amount  of  practice  necessary 
to  make  the  handling  of  your  cue  as  familiar  and  easy  to  you  as 
striking  the  keys  of  a  piano  after  having  learned  to  play  music  at 
sight.  When  you  have  learned  this,  you  then  begin  to  study  the 
forces  and  to  apply  your  own  ideas  as  experience  may  suggest. 

BATHING    AND    SWIMMING. 

How  few  ladies  there  are  who  know  how  to  bathe  properly,  and 
how  lamentable  is  the  fact  that  so  vast  a  majority  of  women  are  ignorant 
of  the  art  of  swimming  !  Yet  the  one  is  a  valuable  essential  of  a  healthy 
condition  of  the  system,  and  the  other  is  of  vital  importance  to  every 
human  being — man  or  boy,  woman  or  girl — as  a  means  of  preserving 
life.  With  all  the  deference  shown  by  woman  to  the  behests  of  re- 
ligious rules,  the  one  great  law  of  the  religious  code,  "  cleanliness  is, 
akin  to  godliness,"  is  sadly  neglected  by  a  large  class  of  wealthy 
women.  Not  that  they  neglect  their  necessary  ablutions  in  their 
bath-rooms,  but  that  they  are  too  much  afraid  of  sea-shore  or  cold 
water  bathing.  Thanks,  however,  to  the  very  great  facilities  which 
are  now  afforded  at  our  metropolitan  sea-shore  resorts,  such  as  Coney 
Island,  Rockaway,  Long  Beach,  the  Hampton  beaches  on  Long 
Island,  and  at  Long  Branch,  Newport  and  other  such  noted  watering- 


SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES.  IO9 

places,  sea-bathing  has  become  more  frequent  than  it  used  to  be, 
and  with  it  has  come  a  better  condition  of  health  among  the  women 
who  have  taken  advantage  of  the  facihties  afforded  them  each  sum- 
mer. We  have  frequently  seen  ladies  in  the  water  on  the  Coney 
Island  beach  bathing  places,  however,  who  have  by  their  neglect  of 
the  hygienic  rules  of  bathing  almost  nullified  the  beneficial  effects  of 
their  baths.  For  instance,  how  many  are  there  of  the  lady  bathers 
at  our  watering-places  in  the  summer  who  ever  strictly  observe  the 
following  code  of  rules  for  healthy  bathing  ? 

First — Never  take  a  cold  bath  directly  after  a  hearty  meal,  as 
the  drafts  made  upon  the  natural  heat  of  the  body  by  the  sudden  im- 
mersion in  the  cold  water  abruptly  retard  the  process  of  digestion, 
even  at  times  stopping  it  altogether.  Going  in  to  bathe,  too,  on  an 
empty  stomach  is  almost  as  trying  to  the  digestive  organs.  An  hour 
after  a  meal  is  the  least  time  necessary  for  the  stomach  to  be  prepared 
for  the  loss  of  heat. 

Second — While  it  is  not  advisable  to  rush  into  cold  water  with  a 
system  overheated  to  any  excess,  it  is  less  objectionable  than  to  go 
into  the  water  "  cooled  off,"  as  too  many  do.  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  system  wants  all  its  natural  heat  to  bring  about  that 
reactionary  circulation  of  the  blood  to  the  surface  of  the  body,  after  it 
has  been  driven  inwardly  by  the  shock  of  the  cold  water.  To  cool 
off  before  bathing  is  to  deprive  yourself  of  the  very  means  required  to 
induce  that  healthy  reaction,  which  is  such  an  essential  advantage  of 
the  bath.  It  used  to  be  regarded  as  necessary  to  get  "cooled  off" 
before  bathing,  but  that  has  been  proved  a  dangerous  fallacy. 

Third — Never  remain  in  the  water  long  enough  to  experience  a 
chilly,  shivering  sensation,  as  it  shows  conclusively  that  you  have 
lost  too  much  of  your  natural  heat.  So  long  as  you  exercise  in  the 
water,  either  by  swimming  or  by  the  romping  and  frolicking  of  the 
surf  bather's  custom,  and  thereby  generate  bodily  heat  as  fast  as  it  is 
absorbed  by  the  water,  your  bath  can  be  prolonged  at  will ;  but  to 
remain  in  until  your  lips  are  blue  and  your  body  is  chilled  to  the 
marrow,  as  it  were,  is  to  nullify  all  the  good  effects  of  your  bath. 


I  lO  THE    HEARTHSTONE ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

Fourth — Avoid,  when  swimming,  going  far  from  the  shore,  if  the 
temperature  of  the  water  is  below  the  ordinary  summer  months'  range, 
as  it  sometimes  is,  as  one  result  will  be  liability  to  seizure  by  cramps, 
in  which  case  your  nether  limbs  become  helpless.  Cramps,  too,  al- 
most invariably  follow  going  into  the  water  when  the  stomach  is  not 
in  condition  to  withstand  the  shock. 

Fifth — When  you  first  go  in  the  water,  take  a  good  douse  of 
water,  immersing  your  body  entirely,  and  then  come  out  and  wait 
until  the  reaction  sets  in,  then  return  and  exercise  in  the  water,  not 
simply  lay  off  and  get  cool  in  it.  That  is  not  bathing  for  the  benefit 
of  the  bath. 

Sixth — Never  go  beyond  the  stated  boundaries — if  you  are  not  a 
competent  long-distance  swimmer — unless  there  are  safety-ropes  or 
other  safeguards  on  the  shore.  The  best  swimmers  can  be  too  ven- 
turesome. 

There  are  other  bathing  rules  to  be  attended  to  by  those  who  bathe 
for  health  alone,  but.  the  above  will  suffice  for  this  work. 

How  to  learn  to  swim  is  not  only  an  important  subject  for  study 
and  investigation,  but  "  How  am  I  to  learn  to  swim  ?  "  is  a  question 
not  very  easy  of  answer,  unless  through  the  medium  of  a  regular 
treatise  on  the  art ;  and  yet  to  learn  to  swim  may  be  said  to  be  some- 
thing very  easy  of  attainment  under  certain  circumstances,  among 
which  may  be  named  the  possession  of  courage,  determination  and  a 
measurable  degree  of  what  is  known  as  "  presence  of  mind,"  or,  the 
nerve  to  think,  the  courage  to  act,  and  to  act  promptly  on  the  sugges- 
tion of  your  sudden  thought,  on  the  occasion  of  a  critical  emergency. 
Animals  which  have  never  entered  the  water  swim  by  instinct,  the 
requisite  motions  of  the  limbs  to  sustain  them  in  the  water  coming 
into  play  at  once  by  natural  influence.  Why  it  is  that  it  is  not  so  in 
the  case  of  mankind  is  simply  because  the  controlling  power  of  edu- 
cation too  frequently  mars  the  influence  of  instinct.  The  Indian 
boy  at  the  Sandwich  Islands  needs  no  lessons  in  swimming.  From 
the  first  entry  of  the  child  into  the  water  the  little  one  strikes  out 
naturally,  and  manages  to  keep  afloat,  if  nothing  more,  his  progress  to- 


,  SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES.  I  I  I 

ward  perfect  swimming  being  rapid.  But  our  boys,  and  especially  our 
girls,  inheriting  an  educated  dread  of  water,  lose  all  confidence,  become 
paralyzed  with  fear  and  muscularly  helpless  when  suddenly  thrown 
into  deep  water.  Could  they  realize  the  fact,  at  such  a  time,  that  it 
is  really  more  difficult  to  keep  under  the  water  than  it  is  to  float 
on  its  surface,  they  would  then  be  in  possession  of  that  confidence 
which  would  allow  natural  instinct  to  have  its  way,  and  then  to  strike 
out  and  swim  at  once  would  be  at  their  command.  Confidence 
is  everything  in  learning  to  swim.  Indeed,  the  art  is  almost  impos- 
sible of  attainment  without  it.  The  point,  therefore,  in  the  very  be- 
ginning is  how  to  become  inspired  with  the  necessary  confidence. 
We  learned  to  swim  in  half  an  hour  by  obtaining  a  practical  knowl- 
edge of  how  difficult  it  is  to  keep  under  water,  after  we  had  used  up 
months  in  unavailing  efforts  with  such  ordinary  aids  to  swimming, 
as  floats,  corks  and  rubber  life-preservers.  Standing  in  a  bathing- 
house  in  water  four  feet  deep,  we  tossed  a  pebble  in,  and,  keeping 
our  eyes  open,  dived  under  the  water  to  pick  it  up.  It  looked  quite 
easy,  but  no  sooner  was  our  body  under  the  water  than  its  tendency 
to  float  to  the  top  kept  us  from  reaching  the  pebble.  Realizing  this 
fact  so  clearly  and  palpably,  and  having  become  quite  familiar  with 
the  movement  of  limbs  necessary  in  swimming,  we  at  once  struck  out 
in  deeper  water,  and  swam  with  ease  the  length  of  the  bath,  though 
previously  we  could  not  progress  two  yards  without  feeling  the  fear 
of  sinking. 

The  motion  of  the  limbs  in  swimming  is  simply  that  of  moving 
your  arms  and  legs  as  propellers  to  push  yourself  forward  through 
the  water.  However,  no  book  rules  will  suffice  to  teach  you  to  swim. 
Better  watch  a  girl  who  can  swim  well,  and  then  try  to  copy  her 
movements.  Remember  this :  If  you  think  you  are  about  to  sink 
when  in  the  water,  keep  as  still  as  you  can,  paddle  with  your  hands, 
and  throw  your  head  back  ;  but  don't  struggle  wildly.  Above  all,  do 
not  go  near  deep  water  unless  you  can  swim.  Many  a  girl's  life  has 
been  lost  at  watering-places  by  venturing  out  too  far,  and  getting 
frightened  when  the  water  is  near  her  arms  in  depth. 


112  THE    HEARTHSTONE;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME.  ^ 

The  editor  of  the  London  Truth,  after  observing  that  probably  not 
one  in  twenty  of  the  persons  who  indulge  in  boating  on  a  holiday 
can  swim,  proceeds  to  tell  his  readers  how  to  acquire  this  accomplish- 
ment. "  Nothing,"  he  says,  "  is  more  easy.  When  the  air  is  out  of 
a  body  its  owner  sinks ;  when  the  air  is  in  the  body  its  owner  floats. 
Let  any  one  slowly  draw  in  his  breath  as  he  draws  back  his  legs  and 
pushes  forward  his  arms,  retain  it  while-he  is  preparing  for  the  stroke 
which  is  to  propel  him,  and  slowly  allow  it  to  go  through  his  lips  as 
his  arms  are  passed  back  from  before  his  head  to  his  sides,  and  his 
legs  are  stretched  out.  The  action  of  the  stroke  should  not  be  quite 
horizontal,  but  should  be  made  on  a  slight  decline  downward.  The 
real  reason  why  people  take  weeks  to  learn  how  to  swim  is  because 
swimming  professors  either  do  not  know,  or  do  not  choose  to  teach, 
the  philosophy  of  breathing,  so  as  to  render  the  body  buoyant." 

ROWING. 

Rowing  a  light  boat  on  a  stream,  a  lake,  a  mill-pond  in  the  country, 
or  on  our  city  lakes  at  Central  or  Prospect  Park,  is  a  very  pleasur- 
able and  healthy  exercise  for  girls,  as  it  gives  freedom  of  action  to 
the  much-neglected  muscles  of  their  arms  and  chest;  but  unless  light 
oars  are  used  the  work  is  rather  heavy  for  ladies.  No  girl  ought  to 
enter  a  boat  alone  for  rowing  exercise  unless  she  knows  how  to  swim. 
There  are  so  many  chances  for  accidents  of  one  kind  or  another  which 
involve  risk  of  drowning  that  this  rule  ought  to  be  generally  ob- 
served by  lady  rowers.  Of  course,  if  you  have  a  gentleman  w^ith  you 
the  case  is  different,  or  some  one  who  can  swim  in  case  of  emergency. 
Light  boats,  suitable  for  a  girl  to  row  about  in,  are  easily  upset,  and 
they  require  careful  handling.  In  learning  to  row  you  begin  by  using 
one  oar  at  a  time.  Don't  go  to  work  at  it  in  a  hap-hazard  way, 
but  study  the  thing  up.  and  first  know  what  you  have  to  do  to  pull 
an  oar  before  you  set  about  it.  There  is  the  action  of  dipping  the 
oar  properly ;  pulling  it  forward  ;  lifting  it  out  of  the  water  and  push- 
ing it  back  again  ready  for  the  next  dip — making  four  separate  move- 
ments which  require  special  attention  to  be  given  to  each  one — and 


J  SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES.  II3 

then  you  must  attend  to  doing  all  four  with  harmonious  action  and  in 
clock-work  order.  The  dip,  the  pull,  the  lift  and  push  back  are  the 
four  distinct  movements  used  in  pulling  an  oar.  You  must  avoid 
dipping  your  oar  too  deep  in  the  water,  going  no  deeper  than  to  ob- 
tain a  good  hold  on  the  water;  in  lifting  it,  too,  you  must  avoid  lift- 
ing it  too  high  out  of  the  water.  In  deep  water  let  the  flat  part  of  the 
oar  go  under  water,  and  in  lifting  let  it  skim  the  surface  of  the  w^ater 
a  few  inches  only  above  it.  In  pulling  your  oar  forward,  do  it  with 
a  steady  stroke,  not  with  a  jerk,  giving  your  full  strength  to  the  pull 
just  as  the  oar  reaches  the  centre  of  the  stroke  and  its  deepest  im- 
mersion ;  and  when  you  push  back  your  oar  on  its  return  out  of  water, 
do  it  with  a  quick  but  steady  stroke.  Begin  slowly,  and  look  well  at 
each  of  your  four  movements:  first  at  the  dip,  that  your  oar  is  not 
too  deep  in  the  water;  then  at  your  forward  pull,  that  your  full 
strength  be  not  exerted  until  your  oar  is  well  in  the  water ;  then  at 
your  lift,  that  your  oar  may  not  rise  more  than  three  or  four  inches 
above  the  water,  and  lastly,  at  your  return  stroke,  so  that  your  oar 
may  go  back  quickly  and  yet  enter  the  water  without  a  splash.  After 
learning  these  four  movements  well,  you  will  then  have  to  learn  how 
to  "  feather  "  your  oar.  You  will  have  observed  that  in  making  your 
return  stroke  after  lifting  your  oar  from  the  water  the  flat  por- 
tion of  the  oar  acts  as  a  surface  facing  the  wind  so  as  to  retard  your 
advance,  especially  if  you  are  rowing  against  the  wind.  To  obviate 
this  and  to  present  to  the  wind  on  the  return  stroke  only  the  edge 
of  the  oar  is  what  the  process  of  feathering  accomplishes,  and  this 
feathering  is  done  by  the  motion  of  the  wrists  in  turning  the  handle 
of  the  oar  half  round  the  moment  you  lift  the  oar  from  the  water. 
The  oar  while  in  the  water  being  in  position  No.  i,  is,  when  it  is 


NO.    I.  NO.    2. 

lifted,  changed  at  once  to  position  Xo.  2,  the  centre  line  of  the  dia- 
gram showing  the  vertical  and  horizontal  position  of  the  paddle  of  the 
oar.     This  feathering  of  the  oar  is  not  essential  for  the  ordinary  pur- 


114  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

poses  of  exercise,  but  it  is  the  finishing  stroke  of  the  art,  and  gives 

strength  to  the  muscles  of  the  wrist.    Of  course,  when  you  can  do  all 

this  while  using  both  hands  to  a  single  oar,  you  then  learn  to  do 

exactly  the  same  movements  first  with  the  right  hand  and  then  with 

the  left.    When  you  can  do  this  well,  you  then  begin  to  row  with  the 

pair  of  oars,  and  if  you  have  followed  the  above  instructions  carefully, 

you  will  be  surprised  to  see  how  soon  you  can  row  with  both  oars, 

and  row  creditably,  too. 

CHESS. 

The  gamie  of  Chess  is  the  king  of  in-door  games,  and  the  most 
scientific  recreation  a  lady  can  engage  in.  It  differs  from  every  other 
game  in  vogue  in  that  the  element  of  chance  is  completely  eliminated 
from  it.  In  this  fact,  too,  lies  one  of  its  greatest  attractions,  for  a 
victory  won  at  chess  is  a  triumph  due  to  your  skill  in  out-manoeu- 
vering  youradversary  by  your  superior  play,  and  not  by  your  possession 
of  a  full  hand  of  trumps,  as  in  cards,  or  by  the  lucky  toss  of  the  dice, 
as  in  backgammon.  Ladies  have  a  prevalent  idea  that  to  learn  to 
play  chess  is  an  immensely  difficult  and  fatiguing  task ;  whereas  the 
fact  is  that  there  are  few  games  the  elementary  rules  of  which  are 
more  easy  of  explanation,  and  not  one  which  yields  such  an  amount 
of  gratification  in  the  mastery  of  its  rules  as  chess.  A  drawback  to 
the  general  introduction  of  a  knowledge  of  chess  exists  in  the  fact 
that  nearly  all  the  books  of  instruction  on  the  game  are  written  as  if 
the  authors  regarded  the  game  in  the  light  of  a  mathematical  study 
rather  than  a  mental  recreation.  One  effect  of  this  course  has  been 
to  frighten  young  students,  especially  ladies,  at  the  very  outset  of 
their  attempt  to  learn  the  game,  by  impressing  them  with  the  idea 
that  quite  an  amount  of  laborious  work  is  before  them  ere  they 
can  hope  to  become  adepts  at  the  game.  Another  characteristic  of 
most  books  of  instruction  is  the  too  great  prominence  given  to  the 
study  of  the  various  chess  openings,  as  if  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
these  would  alone  make  one  a  first-class  player.  The  study  of  open- 
ings, as  well  as  the  playing  over  of  games  by  noted  masters  of  the 
art,  are  well  enough  in  their  way ;  but  the  utmost  familiarity  with  the 


SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES.  II5 

best  openings  extant,  or  with  the  style  of  play  of  the  greatest  of 
chess-masters,  will  not  make  you  a  chess-player  unless  you  possess 
the  mental  aptitude  and  ability  to  excel  in  the  game,  and  by  means  of 
which  due  effect  is  to  be  given  your  "  book  knowledge."  This  latter 
aid  to  chess  is  like  the  use  of  cork  floats  in  learning  to  swim — they 
merely  assist  one  to  familiarize  himself  with  certain  movements  prior 
to  his  entire  dependence  upon  his  own  resources.  The  "book" 
player,  in  chess,  goes  on  swimmingly  while  he  is  in  the  shallow  water 
of  his  knowledge  of  the  openings ;  but  the  moment  he  goes  beyond 
that  depth,  and  has  to  depend  upon  his  own  mental  powers  for  suc- 
cess, if  he  lacks  the  nerve,  the  control  of  temper  and  the  strategic 
skill  to  outwit  his  wily  adversary,  all  his  "  book-learning  "  goes  for 
naught. 

An  important  element  of  chess  study,  after  the  learner  has 
mastered  the  initiatory  moves,  and  the  various  powers  possessed  by 
the  six  different  pieces  of  the  chess  board — the  king,  queen,  rooks, 
bishops,  knights  and  pawns — is  to  acquire  the  art  of  chess  analysis, 
which  can  only  be  attained  by  learning  to  calculate  the  effect  of  the 
various  moves  on  the  board  without  moving  the  pieces,  just  as  is 
done  in  the  effort  to  solve  a  problem  by  studying  a  printed  diagram. 
Without  this  power  of  mental  analysis  book  study  is  comparatively 
useless.  The  best  way  to  learn  this  is  to  try  and  solve  two  move 
chess  problems. 

To  give  special  detailed  instructions  in  chess  would  be  beyond  the 
scope  of  this  work.  We  therefore  only  present  a  brief  chapter  of 
hints  to  beginners  by  way  of  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  some 
more  elaborate  work.  We  first  present  a  diagram  of  the  board,  with 
the  chessmen  placed  in  their  proper  positions. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  white  men  are  before  the  first  player,  and 
that  the  board  is  placed  so  that  a  white  square  is  in  each  right-hand 
corner  of  the  board.  We  now  come  to  the  peculiar  move  of  each  of 
the  six  different  pieces  on  the  board.  It  will  be  understood  that  there 
are  in  all  thirty-two  pieces  with  which  the  game  is  played,  sixteen  of 
which  are  white  men  and  sixteen  black.     Of  each  sixteen  all  but  the 


ii6 


THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 


king  and  queen  are  duplicated ;  the  bishops,  knights  and  rooks  being 
in  pairs — four  of  each  on  the  board,  two  of  each  being  white,  and 
two  black — while  there  are  eight  pawns  of  each  color.  But  then.- 
are  but  six  pieces  in  all,  each  of  which  has  separate  and  distinct 
moves.  Placing  each  of  these  pieces  in  the  centre  of  the  board 
with  no  other  piece  on  it  at  the  time,  and  it  will  be  found  that  each 
has  the  following  number  of  moves  at  command  :  Beginning  with 
the  king,  as  he  moves  but  one  square  around  his  position,  he  com- 

BLACK, 


white. 


mands  just  ei^ht  squares.  The  queen  moves  as  the  king  does,  but 
with  the  addition  of  no  limit  to  the  number  of  squares  it  can  move 
to,  thereby  commanding  twenty-seven  squares.  The  bishop  moves 
only  diagonally,  each  bishop  on  its  own  squares,  one  for  the  white 
squares  and  one  for  the  black,  each  commanding  thirteen  squares. 
Place  the  two  bishops  of  the  white  men  on  the  two  central  squares 
adjoining  each  other,  and  it  will  be  seen  at  a  glance  how  many 


SPORTS    AND    GAMES    FOR    LADIES.  II7 

squares  each  commands  by  its  diagonal  movement.  The  rooks  each 
command  fourteen  squares  to  the  right  or  the  left,  or  forward  or 
backward,  but  not  diagonally.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  move  of  the 
queen  combines  that  of  the  king,  rooks  and  bishops.  The  knight 
has  a  move  peculiar  to  itself,  and  as  it  stands  in  the  centre  of  the 
board  commands  eight  squares.  It  is  the  only  piece  that,  standing 
in  its  regular  position  with  all  the  other  pieces  in  their  places, 
can  be  moved  before  a  pawn  is  moved  in  the  beginning  of  the  game, 
one  knight  moving  from  black  to  white,  and  the  other  from  white  to 
black.  A  study  of  the  moves  of  the  pieces  as  above  directed  will 
rapidly  familiarize  the  learner  with  the  value  of  each  piece.  The 
pawns  also  have  a  different  method  of  moving  to  that  of  the  other 
pieces,  and,  by  the  way,  the  pawns  are  always  known  as  "  pawns," 
and  the  other  pieces  as  "  pieces."  The  pawn  always  moves  forward, 
one  square  at  a  time,  but  it  can  only  take  by  moving  sideways.  By 
learning  this  much  of  the  game  carefully,  you  will  have  progressed 
far  enough  to  be  able  to  begin  to  play  with  an  experienced  opponent. 


THE  L1BI|AI[Y  \\  THE  HOME. 

"Books 

Are  a  substantial  world,  both  pure  and  good; 
Round  these  with  tendrils  strong  as  flesh  and  blood 
Our  pastime  and  our  happiness  will  grow  !  " 


jHE  ideal  home,  like  the  ideal  life,  should  aim  at  com- 
pleteness and  perfection.  I  use  the  word  "  ideal "  be- 
cause it  exactly  expresses  a  high  mark  to  be  aimed 
at,  and  I  use  the  two  words  "  completeness "  and 
"perfection,"  the  one  to  denote  quantity  and  the 
other  quality.  The  first  reminds  us  that  there  must 
be  enough — that  is,  neither  deficiency  nor  superfluity ;  the  second, 
that  what  there  is  must  be  the  best  of  its  kind. 

In  reality,  perfect  completeness  and  complete  perfection  are  never 
attained  by  man  either  in  his  life  or  in  his  home.  Physically,  men- 
tally and  morally  man  is  an  imperfect  being.  Even  the  strong  man 
armed  finds  a  stronger  than  himself  Our  vision  is  limited  and 
imperfect,  and  both  the  physical  and  intellectual  eye  can  see  but  a 
short  distance,  and  are  bounded  by  a  narrow  horizon  beyond  which 
there  stretch  circle  after  circle  beyond  our  ken  until  they  fade  away 
in  infinity.  But  an  old  historian  makes  this  the  great  difference 
between  man  and  brute,  that  while  the  brute  looks  always  downward 
and  earthward,  man  looks  upward  and  beyond  himself  Yet  we 
must  never  think  that  the  eye  in  us  is  the  centre  of  the  universe,  or 
forget  that 

"  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
Than  are  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy." 

Because  we  cannot  attain  completeness  or  perfection  is  no  reason 

(ii8) 


THE    LIBRARY    IN    THE    HOME. 


119 


why  we  should  not  aim  at  the  best  and  highest.  The  mere  ambition 
and  endeavor  carries  us  a  long  way  up  the  mountain  of  progress. 
One  of  the  greatest  men  who  ever  lived  seemed  to  be  wholly  filled 
with  this  idea.  He  urged  his  fellow-men  to  aim  at  being  perfect  as 
God  is  perfect,  although  he  was  oppressed  by  the  perpetual  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  and  other's  imperfection.  St.  Paul's  mind  was 
that  of  a  spiritual  and  intellectual  architect  who  aimed  at  making 
life  a  perfect  building,  fitly  joined  together  in  all  its  parts,  each  part 
in  harmony  with  all  the  rest,  and  all  blending  upward  into  one  sym- 
metric spire.  The  home  should  be  the  same,  complete  in  its 
furniture,  no  bare  walls  or  floors,  no  rubbish  strewed  around  and 
every  chamber  informed  by  harmony,  which  is  only  another  word 
for  perfection. 

To  approach  toward  this  completeness  and  perfection,  one  of  the 
first  things  needed  is  to  know  what  is  wanting,  and  should  be  added, 
as  well  as  what  is  useless  and  should  be  thrown  aside.  A  great 
heathen  philosopher  discoursing  about  friendship  expresses  his 
wonder  that  while  the  multitude  of  men  are  so  eager  to  provide 
costly  furniture,  and  elegant  appendages  to  life,  they  neglect  to 
provide  themselves  with  sincere  and  faithful  friends,  whom  he  con- 
siders to  be  life's  noblest  furniture. 

Of  course,  in  the  making  of  our  home,  as  in  the  making  of  our 
lives,  there  will  always  be  something  which  we  cannot  complete. 
The  finest  architecture  will  have  some  imperfection  or  defect.  We 
shall  find  the  convex  where  the  concave  would  be  better;  the 
rounded  for  the  pointed,  the  inclined  for  the  straight,  the  elliptical 
for  the  spherical.  So  must  it  ever  be ;  whether  in  life  or  in  the  home, 
so  long  as  man  is  the  builder. 

"  The  unfinished  window  in  Aladdin's  palace 
Unfinished  must  remain." 

This  thought  should  stimulate  and  not  dishearten  us.  Let  us  see 
what  the  defect  is,  and  supply  what  is  wanting  if  we  can.     The  great 


120  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

thing  wanting  in  most  homes  is  not  more  chairs  and  tables,  but 
books,  and  not  so  much  more  books  as  better  ones. 

There  is  a  new  method  of  ministering  to  minds  diseased,  and 
alleviating  melancholy  and  other  disturbed  conditions  of  the  nerves 
and  brain,  which  is  very  simple,  and  is  said  to  have  done  good  to 
many  who  have  tried  it.  It  is  called  the  color  cure,  and  merely  con- 
sists in  selecting  for  wall-paper,  window  panes,  furniture  or  carpets, 
curtains  and  drapery,  those  colors  that  relieve  the  eye,  and  acting 
through  the  sight  upon  the  mind  produce  a  diversion  of  feeling  and 
give  another  current  to  the  thoughts.  Every  one  has  been  conscious 
of  the  relief  which  beautiful  flowers,  both  by  their  colors  and  their 
perfume,  afford,  when  one  is  suffering  with  headache  or  what  is 
known  as  "  the  blues."  They  have  the  same  effect  upon  us  through 
the  eye  as  a  strain  of  exquisite  music  has  upon  us  through  the  ear. 
A  single  rose  has  often  gladdened  a  whole  room,  and  brought  pleas- 
ant thoughts  and  feelings  to  the  invalid  in  mind  or  body.  Beautiful 
books  can  do  the  same,  and  with  more  permanent  effect.  Not  by 
the  rich  binding,  the  fine  paper,  the  clear  type,  the  pretty  pictures — 
although  all  these  are  pleasant  to  the  taste,  and  good  food  for  the 
imagination  and  the  fancy — but  chiefly  by  the  precious  jewels  of 
truth  and  light,  of  memory  and  hope,  of  beauty  and  sweetness  that 
lie  within  the  casket  of  the  leaves  and  bindincr. 

Of  completeness  and  perfection,  size  or  bulk  is  not  the  test  or  the 
condition.  A  large  and  showy  book  may  not  be  worth  reading,  while 
a  small  and  unpretending  one  may  be  a  pearl  of  great  price  to  the 
reader's  mind.  "  Handsome  is  that  handsome  does,"  is  true  of  books 
as  well  as  men.  A  showy  person,  however  faultless  his  exterior,  may 
be  a  fool,  and  some  little  people  are  the  greatest  of  men  and  the 
most  agreeable  of  companions.  The  beauty  of  a  house  does  not 
I'.epend  upon  its  size.  It  may  be  very  defective,  although  very  large; 
and  have  completeness  and  perfection,  although  merely  a  cottage. 
"A  man's  life,"  said  One  who  knew  what  was  in  man,  "  does  not 
consist  of  the  abundance  of  the  things  that  he  possesses,  for  the  life  is 
more  than  meat,  and  the  body  than  raiment."     Neither  do  the  com- 


THE    LIBRARY    IN    THE    HOME.  121 

pleteness  and  perfection  of  a  man's  life  depend  upon  the  length  of  it. 
A  short  day  may  see  great  deeds  done,  and  a  long  day  may  be  full 
of  emptiness.  Some  men  and  women  have  accomplished  their  life- 
work  at  thirty,  while  others  who  live  to  be  a  hundred  have  never  done 
anything  at  all.  One  man  has  been  a  benefactor  to  his  race  while 
yet  a  youth,  and  has  retired  to  rest  early  because  his  work  was  done. 
Another  may  go  on  living,  if  that  can  be  called  living  which  is 
merely  eating,  drinking  and  sleeping,  until  all  his  companions  have 
departed  and  all  whom  he  has  conversed  with  have  fallen  asleep, 
and  nothing  of  him  be  noted  or  have  ever  been  observed,  except  that 
he  was  a  creeping  thing  made  up  of  coat,  and  hat  and  cane. 

"  Little  and  good  "  is  better  than  big  and  useless.  Nimble  Jack 
was  too  much  for  the  giant  Blunderbore,  The  ants  do  more  than 
the  tortoises.  Old  Parr,  who  died  of  too  much  cakes  and  ale  at 
Charles  the  Second's  court,  was  a  mere  boy  when  he  died  because,  in 
a  century  and  a  half,  he  had  not  learned  as  much,  or  done  as  much, 
or  tried  to  do  as  much,  as  many  a  village  lad  who  marvelled  at  him 
and  why  he  went  on  living  when  all  other  folks  died  decently. 

Plato  taught  men  centuries  ago  that  it  is  far  better  to  learn  a  little 
well  than  a  great  deaf  confusedly.  Smattering  is  bad  both  in  life 
and  reading.  Many  a  centenarian  has  only  smattered  through  life, 
and  does  not  know  much  about  it  when  his  book  of  life  is  shut  for- 
ever. The  same  is  true  of  indiscriminate  and  desultory  readers. 
They  remind  one  of  those  who  have  no  ear  for  music,  but  think  it 
must  be  fine  in  proportion  to  the  loudness  of  the  noise  it  makes. 
The  still  small  voice  is  inaudible  to  them ;  they  want  thunder  from 
plenty  of  big  drums.  Some  people's  taste  in  books  is  like  that  of 
the  New  York  gamins  in  plays  ;  they  must  have  plenty  of  blood  for 
their  money,  and  the  play  to  suit  them  must  be  "  full  of  sound  and 
fury,  signifying  nothing." 

There  are  certain  marks  and  signs  by  which  one  may  know  the 
mental  habits  of  others,  just  as  a  man's  good  breeding  or  the  reverse 
may  be  manifested  in  little  things.  Good  old  Launcelot  Andrews, 
Bishop  of  Winchester,  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  used  to  be 


122  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

very  much  annoyed  by  idle  visitors  who  disturbed  him  while  he  was 
studying  in  his  library  of  a  morning.  "  Methink,"  said  he,  "that 
they  be  no  true  scholars  who  call  upon  man  before  noon."  In  the 
same  way,  we  may  set  down  a  few  of  the  tokens  by  which  the  sham 
thinker  and  shallow  reader  may  be  known. 

There  are  persons — their  name  is  legion — who  borrow  books  as 
they  do  umbrellas,  without  the  remotest  intention  of  ever  returning 
them.  This  is  bad  enough,  but  it  is  almost  as  bad  to  deface,  "dog's- 
ear,"  or  tear  a  book  before  returning  it.  Some  valuable  books  when 
they  come  back  to  their  too  kindly  owner  present  the  appearance  of 
having  been  used  as  a  portable  dinner-table,  the  once  unsullied  pages 
wearing  the  aspect  of  a  greasy  table-cloth.  This  is  vulgar  and  in- 
decent, but  even  worse  than  this  is  it  to  find  one's  book  desecrated 
by  the  idiotic  remarks  and  egotistic  emendations  of  the  conceited 
coxcomb,  or,  let  us  charitably  hope,  silly  lunatic,  to  whom  in  a 
moment  of  amiable  weakness  we  lent  the  cherished  volume  which 
had  solaced  many  a  lonely  and  enlivened  many  a  leisure  hour.  The 
shock  is  almost  as  great  as  if  we  saw  again  the  face  of  a  dear 
friend  besmeared  with  mud  by  some  miserable  urchin  of  the  gutter. 
Nothing  has  ever  made  a  rational  being  regret  his  ability  to  read  so 
much  as  the  perusal  of  these  inane,  asinine  comments  and  presumed 
improvements  on  some  favorite  author,  written  on  the  margin. 
Show  us  the  girl  who  cannot  admire  a  sentence  or  a  sentiment  with- 
out scrawling  "  very  true  "  or  '!  how  beautiful  "  beside  it,  and  we  will 
show  you  a  girl  whom  the  sensible  young  men  of  her  neighborhood 
will  do  well  to  avoid.  No  rational  man  would  make  love  or  offer 
marriage  to  one  of  these  feminine  annotators.  She  would  write  her 
impressions  on  his  shirt  front  and  make  remarks  upon  his  cuffs.  The 
note-taker,  the  annotator,  the  commentator,  the  critic  are  of  course 
inevitable  everywhere,  and  are  well  enough  in  their  place. 

"  A  chiel's  amang  ye  takin'  notes, 
And,  faith,  he'll  prent  it ;  " 

but  that  will  be  in  his  own  book;  he  will  not  pencil  it  in  ours.     It  is 


THE    LIBRARY    IN    THE    HOME.  1 23 

not  fair  to  lay  all  the  blame  upon  school-girls  and  maidens,  how- 
ever, in  this  matter.  The  youth  whose  imagination  is  "  sicklied  o'er  ", 
with  his  own  conceit  does  it  as  often  as  the  skin-deep  female  annotator. 
He  obtrudes  his  cant,  his  bigotry,  his  feeble  unreason  and  even  his 
bad  spelling  and  vile  grammar  upon  all  who  have  the  misfortune 
to  become  his  victims  by  reading  hereafter  the  page  upon  which 
he  has  left  his  impress.  To  deface  a  man's  book  in  this  way  should 
be  a  felony  by  law ;  it  is  like  the  trick  of  some  dishonest  jewellers 
who  extract  the  genuine  and  insert  a  bogus  stone  into  the  ring  they 
profess  to  repair.  Save  us  from  this  literary  repairing  of  our  books, 
say  we.  Not  only  does  it  destroy  the  value  of  the  work  as  private 
property,  but  when  perpetrated  as  it  constantly  is  upon  the  volumes 
of  a  public  or  circulating  library,  it  diffuses  an  intellectual  small-pox 
and  marks  with  varioloid  all  the  reading  of  a  neighborhood.  Un- 
happily, these  self-inflated  scribblers  conceal  their  names,  or  the  public 
intelligence  which  they  have  outraged  might  deface  and  make  mar- 
ginal notes  upon  the  fleshly  tablets  of  their  own  "  calf" 

These  strictures,  of  course,  do  not  apply  to  those  real  note-takers 
who  study  what  they  read,  and  make  references  in  books  that  belong 
to  themselves.  The  interleaved  plan  is  an  excellent  one,  when  some 
ancient  or  modern  standard  author  whom  one  has  often  to  refer  to  is 
being  studied,  especially  when  comparison  with  other  authorities 
upon  the  same  subject  is  necessary.  This,  of  course,  involves  the 
unbinding  and  rebinding  of  the  book,  with  alternate  blank  pages  for 
annotation,  but  where  that  is  too  expensive  a  process,  the  separate 
note-book  may  be  made  as  useful,  if  intelligently  indexed  and  ar- 
ranged. 

Having  decided  that  our  home  is  incomplete  and  imperfect  without 
a  library,  the  next  step  is  to  set  about  providing  one.  And  here  the 
principle  of  a  little,  thoroughly,  rather  than  a  great  deal  superficially, 
should  guide  us.  Wealthy  people  who  give  a  wholesale  order  for  a 
library  all  at  once,  never  read,  and  often  do  not  know  the  names  of 
the  books  they  buy.  Hence  it  is,  that  famous  and  costly  libraries 
pass  by  public  auction  from  one  wealthy  owner  to  another,  each  new 


124  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

possessor  reading  the  precious  volumes  as  much  as  the  last  one, 
which  is  not  at  all.  Indeed,  the  books  might  as  well  be  dummies, 
'for  the  backs  of  the  bindings  and  the  titles  are  all  that  are  looked  at. 
It  is  better  to  begin  with  a  small  selection  of  books,  and  add  to  them 
as  we  need  more.  As  Milton  said  that,  "  Words  are  the  fool's 
counters  but  the  wise  man's  money,"  so  books  should  be  used  for 
their  real  value  to  the  mind.  For  the  Home  Library  I  do  not  think 
that  sufficient  value  is  set  upon  works  of  imagination.  Family  read- 
ing ought  not  to  be  too  dry  and  serious,  or  made  too  much  like  the 
severe  training  of  professional  and  academical  study.  The  vast 
majority  of  readers  have  to  work  for  their  daily  bread,  and  need 
relaxation  and  amusement  in  their  leisure  hours.  A  game  of  chess 
is  a  better  mathematical  exercise  for  them  than  the  propositions  of 
Euclid.  Popularized  science,  however,  where  the  text-books  are 
written  by  the  best  masters,  may  be  quite  as  interesting,  and  more 
instructive  than  most  works  of  imagination.  Theology  and  moral 
philosophy,  not  less  than  social  science,  may  be  made  delightful. 

But  as  general  culture  should  precede  special  knowledge,  it  is  best 
to  humanize  the  family  circle  before  making  it  scientific.  And  this 
humane  culture  comes  from  the  good  story  and  the  beautiful  poem 
more  than  from  the  learned  treatise  or  the  didactic  discourse.  The 
works  of  Charles  Dickens  have  had  an  immense  influence  upon 
English-speaking  humanity,  but  they  have  helped  to  change  the 
very  conditions  of  life  they  described,  and  for  that  reason  are  no 
longer  as  much  read  by  the  young  as  formerly.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  more  exclusive  and  select  circles  that  Thackeray  satirized. 
The  "  Vanity  Fair  "  we  mix  in  nowadays  is  not  one  of  rakes  and 
marquises,  of  fashionable  clubs  and  classical  old  schoolfellows.  The 
virtues  and  vices  of  humanity  are  the  same  always  and  everywhere, 
but  we  have  to  take  them  out  of  one  frame  and  put  them  into  an- 
other to  suit  the  times.  Major  Pendennis  and  Colonel  Newcome  are 
passed  away,  and  their  qualities  are  dressed  in  other  uniforms. 
Hence,  the  story-writers  who  take  life  on  a  large  scale,  and  make 
their  stories  less  dependent  upon  the  accidents  of  birth  and  place, 


THE    LIBRARY    IN    THE    HOME.  125 

last  longer  and  are  less  ephemeral.  Such  are  George  MacDonald, 
Charlotte  Bronte,  and  the  supreme  George  Eliot.  The  last-named, 
especially,  merely  used  the  novel  as  a  setting  or  frame  for  her  pic- 
tures of  the  truth. 

It  would  be  very  difficult  and  of  little  use  to  suggest  a  list  of  books 
for  the  library  at  home.  Not  only  would  the  size  of  the  library  have 
to  be  considered  in  relation  to  the  means  and  social  condition  of 
the  particular  family,  but  the  previous  education,  tastes,  capacities, 
and  idiosyncrasies  of  every  member  of  the  family,  would  have  to  be 
taken  into  account.  I  have  met  persons  of  good  intelligence  who 
worshipped  Carlyle,  and  others  who  could  not  endure  him.  All 
authors  who  write  in  a  singular  or  affected  style  create  repugnance 
in  some,  to  whom  their  ideas  would  be  acceptable  in  another  dress. 
This  is  why  Washington  Irving  and  Hawthorne  are  so  universally 
beloved  in  every  household.  Their  style  has  no  affectations ;  it  is 
as  natural  as  their  stories. 

Ours  is  pre-eminently  the  age  of  story-reading  and  of  story-writ- 
ing. It  is  rare  to  find  a  novel  nowadays  which  has  not  some  merit ; 
but  since,  amid  such  abundance,  one  cannot  possibly  read  all,  it  is 
best  to  keep  to  the  great  masters  whose  works  have  borne  the  tests 
of  criticism  and  of  time.  Life  is  too  short  to  read  every  new  novel 
to  find  what  there  is  of  nourishment,  pleasure,  and  mental  profit  in  it. 
It  is  best  to  be  guided  by  those  who  have  read  the  book  and  recom- 
mended it.  Hence  Emerson  said  that  he  never  read  a  book  until  it 
was  twenty  years  old.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  novels  are  wholesome 
reading.  More  recent  novelists  too  often  write  down  to  the  frivoli- 
ties of  their  own  time,  instead  of  up  to  the  humanity  of  all  time. 
And  of  books  that  inspire  us  with  power,  and  are  not  merely  a  re- 
source for  killing  time,  it  may  be  said  that,  "  no  one  who  has  tasted 
old  wine  straightway  desireth  new,  for  he  saith  the  old  is  better." 

In  the  judgment  of  Archbishop  Trench,  the  greatest  master  of  the 
English  language  among  modern  autliors  was  Thomas  DeQuinccy; 
and  in  the  judgment  of  Anthony  Trollope,  the  greatest  novel  in  the 
English  language  is  Thackeray's  "  Henry  Esmond."     Mr.  Trollope's 


126  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

own  novels  are  very  widely  read,  both  in  America  and  in  Englarid  ; 
many  persons  of  good  taste  are  enthusiastic  about  "  Orley  Farm," 
and  "  Barchester  Towers."  Yet  there  are  people  of  good  taste 
who  confess  that  they  never  felt  power  or  stimulus  from  any  of 
Trollope's  novels. 

The  ground' one  treads  upon  when  offering  advice  to  others  as  to 
the  selection  of  a  home  library  is  so  crowded  that  no  matter  what 
selection  may  be  made,  others  will  suggest  a  better  and  others  a 
better  still:  The  guiding  principle  of  all  readers  should  be  to  read 
such  books  as  give  them  power,  not  such  as  weaken  them.  The 
analogy  of  the  body  and  food  holds  good  of  the  mind  and  reading. 
There  are  some  foods  that  make  bone  and  others  that  make  flesh. 
A  child  fed  on  nothing  but  candies  would  soon  die.  Doctors  tell 
us  that  only  two  foods  contain  every  possible  element  of  nutrition 
which  every  part  of  the  human  system  requires.  These  are  milk 
and  eggs.  These  foods  assimilate  quickly  and  are  easily  digested ; 
milk  the  more  so,  as  the  glutinous  substance  in  eggs  takes  longer.  If 
any  one  had  to  choose  two  books  that  should  do  most  for  all  his 
moral  and  mental  constitution,  and  should  ask  me,  "  Where  are  the 
milk  and  eggs  for  the  mind  ?  "  I  should  answer  at  once,  "  The  Bible 
and  Shakspeare."  That  is  not  saying  that  all  parts  of  these  two 
volumes  are  equally  valuable,  or  denying  that  some  parts  are  not  the 
most  wholesome  brain  food.  All  milk  is  not  equally  good,  and  the 
shells  of  eggs  are  not  eaten.  I  mean  only  that  within  the  covers  of 
the  Bible  and  within  the  covers  of  Shakspeare  there  is  the  finest  food 
for  heart  and  life  that  has  ever  yet  come  into  the  human  market.  A 
home  library,  therefore,  would  be  incomplete  and  imperfect  without 
these-  two  master-pieces  of  experience,  humanity,  philosophy,  and 
poetry. 

The  mention  of  poetry  reminds  us  that  it  must  be  ranked  with  the 
story  as  an  educator  of  the  imagination.  Some  persons  do  not  care 
for  poetry,  others  like  one  poet  and  dislike  another.  There  are  many 
who  care  nothing  for  any  of  the  fine  arts,  whether  the  eye  or  the  ear 
is  appealed  to.     The  reason  of  this  is  that  imagination  is  by  no  means 


THE    LIBRARY    IN    THE    HOME. 


127 


a  universal  quality,  and  that  a  vast  number  of  human  beings  are 
esthetically  blind  and  deaf.  Yet  it  is  not  possible  to  overrate  the 
influence  of  the  imagination  upon  every  phase  of  human  life.  It  has 
founded  empires  and  destroyed  them ;  it  has  built  cities,  temples  and 
palaces,  and  laid  them  waste;  it  has  given  impetus  to  commerce, 
and  discovered  continents.  A  quick,  vivid  and  reason-tempered 
imagination  is  the  most  powerful  weapon  for  success  in  life.  A 
warped,  perverted,  feeble,  irresolute  imagination  will  never  get  from 
the  shadow  to  the  substance.  Hence,  so  many  lives  are  spent  in 
dreaming  and  nothing  else.  That  only  is  true  imagination  which 
sets  the  will  in  motion  and  leads  to  definite  results. 

Poetry  comes  in  as  proper  food  for  this  divine  gift  and  wonderful 
faculty  within  us.  It  is  foolish  to  be  always  asking  others  such  ques- 
tions as  who  is  their  favorite  poet,  and  whether  they  think  this  poet 
better  than  the  other.  Every  one  has  his  own  taste  in  literature  as  in 
all  else,  and  especially  in  poetry.  Too  much  even  of  wholesome  food 
is  bad ;  we  ought  to  digest  thoroughly  whatever  we  eat.  Indiscrim- 
inate reading  leads  to  mental  dyspepsia,  but  a  moderate  meal  of 
stimulating  food  gives  lustre  to  the  eye  and  energy  to  the  mind. 
After  Shakspeare,  the  poets  I  should  next  think  of  placing  in  my 
little  library  would  be  Wordsworth,  Byron,  Scott,  Tennyson,  Mrs. 
Browning  and  Longfellow,  Bryant  and  Whittier.  Others  would  be 
sent  for  when  we  had  more  room. 

This  training  of  the  imagination  before  the  life  and  character  are 
formed  is,  perhaps,  the  most  solemn  responsibility  that  can  devolve 
upon  parents  and  teachers.  If  once  the  youthful  imagination  is  made 
familiar  with  gross  and  sensual  thoughts,  the  heavenly  dew  of  purity 
is  brushed  rudely  off  it.  "Can  a  man  touch  pitch  and  be  undefilcd?" 
Hence,  the  deadly  poison  of  much  of  the  cheap  sensational  fiction 
and  debased  journalism  of  the  time.  Let  us  fill  our  children's  minds 
with  angels,  lest  devils  enter  in  and  dwell  there. 

To  write  well  for  children,  as  to  be  a  good  oral  teacher  of  children, 
the  author  must  have  the  child's  feelings  fresh  in  himself,  through  the 
power  of  sympathy  and  imagination.     Charles  Kingsley  once  went 


128  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home, 

out  to  rebuke  some  boys  who  were  trespassing  upon  his  grounds 
and  jumping  over  his  fences;  but  so  boylike  was  his  heart,  that  he 
no  sooner  caught  sight  of  their  happy  faces  than  he  forgot  his  wrath 
and  joined  their  frohc.  It  is  this  youthful  spirit  of  sympathy  that 
makes  many  of  his  books  such  healthy  reading  for  boys  and  girls. 
He  is  always  true  to  a  high  standard  of  honor,  fidelity  and  manhood. 
It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  no  better  way  of  guiding  one's  own  or 
others'  children  in  the  choice  of  books,  than  to  look  back  upon  our 
own  childhood,  and  trace  the  mental  influences  that  formed  our  own 
mind  and  character.  If  that  does  not  show  us  what  to  choose,  it 
often  shows  us  what  to  avoid.  Wherever  we  see  that  a  book,  what- 
ever its  literary  merits,  did  us  harm,  we  should  be  careful  not  to  put 
it  in  the  way  of  others.  In  looking  back  to  our  childhood,  how  often 
can  we  distinctly  see  the  ill  effects  of  the  first  book  that  shook  our 
faith  in  religion  or  humanity!  It  set  our  minds  doubting  instead  of 
doing,  and  threw  a  haze  of  uncertainty  upon  the  duties  and  hopes  of 
life  at  the  very  start.  It  might  not  have  been  so  ten  years  later,  but 
destructive  theories  suddenly  introduced  to  a  wondering  but  trusting 
and  yearning  mind  have  a  disastrous  effect  upon  the  mental  and 
moral  energies.  To  please  God  we  must  believe  that  he  is,  says 
St.  Paul,  and  the  infidel  writer  who  tells  us  he  is  7iot,  shakes  our 
trust  in  him,  and  wish  to  please  him.  Beside  this,  early  scepticism 
engenders  the  habit  of  universal  scepticism,  for  which  there  is  seldom 
any  cure  on  this  side  of  the  grave.  Let  us  build  up  principles  in  the 
minds  of  the  young,  not  wantonly  tear  them  down.  I  have  no 
yearning  for  the  Inquisition,  or  the  Roman  "  Index  Expurgatorius," 
but,  so  far  as  happiness  and  singleness  of  heart  in  childhood  are 
concerned,  I  wish  that  the  books  of  Robert  Taylor  and  Tom  Paine 
had  been  burned.  Terrible  to  many  even  now  is  the  memory  of  the 
double  thinking  at  church,  the  secret  misgivings  when  the  Bible  was 
read  to  them,  the  sleepless  nights,  in  which  all  that  their  parents  held 
sacred  and  true  seemed  as  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision.  Next  to 
instilling  doubt,  however,  in  mischievous  effects,  is  the  cramming 
children's   minds  with  superstition.     The  reaction  is  sure  to  come. 


THE    LIBRARY    IN    THE    HOME.  T  29 

They  will  first  believe  the  fables  taught  them ;  then  disbelieve  the 
truth,  because  they  had  been  once  deceived.  From  believing  too 
much,  they  will  believe  too  little,  and  often  nothing  at  all. 

Too  many  feel  with  a  sharp  sense  of  pain  what  the  destructive  in- 
fluences in  their  childhood  were.  Let  them  try  to  recall  the  construc- 
tive, strengthening  and  confirming  ones.  The  sentiment  of  pity  grew 
apace  within  them,  as  they  studied  the  healing  deeds  of  Christ,  and 
they  found  religious  reflection  much  stirred  by  his  parables.  Next 
to  these,  perhaps,  John  Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  other 
sacred  allegories  to  a  less  degree  had  the  most  to  do  with  serious 
religious  feeling  and  imagination.  Religious  allegories  are  good 
reading  in  proportion  as  they  are  true  to  man's  real  experience  of  the 
conflict  of  good  and  evil  within  him.  The  "  Pilgrim's  Progress"  is  a 
true  parable  of  life. 

In  secular  literature  appealing  to  the  imagination,  the  poetry  that 
made  them  grow  most  was,  first,  that  which  reflected  their  own  heart 
and  taught  them  to  look  within ;  and,  secondly,  that  which  drew 
the  imagination  out  into  a  world  of  light  of  beauty  by  bringing 
nature  home  to  them,  and  impressing  its  wonders  and  beauties  on 
the  mind.  Wordsworth,  especially  his  "  Excursion,"  had  a  great 
progressive  effect  upon  early  thinking  and  feeling. 

For  young  people  I  do  not  like  Milton  because  he  is  too  deep  and 
classical,  and  the  military  parade  and  speech-making  of  the  Satanic 
conspirators  have  no  attraction  for  them.  But  when  they  grow  old 
enough  to  separate  the  kernel  from  the  shell,  they  find  a  sense  of  sub- 
limity in  Milton,  which  is  to  be  found  in  but  one  or  two  other  poets. 

In  poetry  we  find  the  truest  and  most  perfect  pictures  of  humanity 
in  action,  yet  my  own  mind  never  felt  an  enthusiasm  such  as  many 
do  for  epic  or  narrative  poems.  The  poetry  I  loved  best  as  a  child 
was  that  of  the  affections  rather  than  that  of  the  battle-field.  I  would 
rather  read  of  the  battle  of  Hastings  in  a  good  history  of  England. 
than  in  Tennyson's  "  Harold,"  and  of  the  martyrs  of  Queen  Mary's 
reign  in  Blunt's  "  Sketch  of  the  Reformation  in  England,"  than  in 
Tennyson's  "  Queen  Mary."  For  the  same  indefinable  reason  I  have 
9 


130  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

never  been  fond  of  dramatized  history.  I  like  best  a  play  that 
relies  upon  imagination  for  its  facts,  these  facts  being  true  to  human 
nature  and  experience,  outgrowths  of  the  imagination  which  is  based 
on  truth,  rather  than  of  the  fancy  which  is  not  so  derived.  Of  all 
the  definitions  of  poetry  which  I  have  met  with,  that  of  Words- 
worth will  best  bear  repetition  and  looking  into  earnestly.  "  Poetry 
is  the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge,  the  impassioned 
expression  which  is  in  the  countenance  of  all  science."  The  body 
of  knowledge  and  of  science  is  not  necessary  to  our  appreciation  of 
this  spirit  and  admiration  of  this  countenance.  Hence,  poetry  is  a 
great  help  and  stimulus  in  the  patient  pursuit  of  knowledge. 

Next  to  romance  and  poetry  come  history  and  biography. 
History  is  not  the  learning  by  repetition  of  dates,  places  and  names. 
We  must  look  for  laws  and  principles  in  it,  and  hence  a  complete 
view  of  it  is  called  the  philosophy  of  history,  because  in  widely 
distant  ages,  peoples  and  lands  we  find  that  like  causes  produce  like 
effects.  To  be  a  real'  student  of  history  is  to  view  all  things  in  the 
light  of  law,  to  have  the  mind  well  furnished  with  parallels  and 
similitudes,  with  principles  and  cautions.  There  are  two  ways  of 
reading  history.  One  may  begin  with  the  general  and  work  down 
to  the  particular,  or  one  may  begin  with  a  centre  and  work  to  the 
outer  circumference.  The  last  mentioned  is  the  best  plan  for  general 
readers.  Let  us  begin  with  our  own  race  and  country,  and  from 
them  extend  the  circle  of  our  reading  to  other  countries,  ancient  and 
modern.  Some  teachers  would  tell  us  to  read  modern  history  before 
we  read  ancient,  and  perhaps  that  is  the  better  method  when  our 
time  is  limited  by  active  pursuits  and  bread-making.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  modern  history,  especially  in  its  politics  and  institutions, 
is  much  easier  to  learn  and  understand,  when  we  know  the  history 
of  Greece  and  Rome  in  their  main  outlines  and  chief  events  and 
persons. 

History,  in  its  best  aspect,  is  but  diffused  biography,  because  it  is 
man  that  has  made  events,  not  events  that  have  made  man.  Biography, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  history  condensed  and  incarnated  in  a  repre- 


THE    LIBRARY    IN    THE    HOME.  I3I 

sentative  maker  of  it.  No  reading  is  more  healthy  than  that  of 
first-class  biography.  "  \Vhat  man  has  done,  man  can  do,"  says  the 
proverb,  and  biography  best  teaches  us  what  man  has  done.  Long- 
fellow puts  this  truly  in  very  simple  verse : 

"  Lives  of  great  men  all  remind  us 
We  can  make  our  lives  sublime; 
And  departing  leave  behind  us 
Footprints  in  the  sands  of  time." 

But  as  "  they  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait,"  so  it  is  not 
necessary  to  go  to  the  wars  in  order  to  do  service  as  a  good  soldier 
in  the  battle  of  life.  Every  human  being  has  some  influence  upon 
others,  and  in  using  this  influence  for  good  we  write  a  good 
biography  of  ourselves. 

In  selecting  works  of  biography  for  a  home  library  the  names  of 
Washington,  Franklin  and  others  connected  with  the  rise  of  the 
Republic  will  occur  to  every  one.  Of  the  life  of  Shakspeare  very 
little  is  known,  but  we  should  know  that  little.  Milton's  life  is  one 
pf  the  most  instructive.  One  should  read  it  in  connection  with  that 
of  Oliver  Cromwell,  whose  Secretary  Milton  was,  and  with  the 
history  of  Charles  the  First,  the  Commonwealth  and  the  Restoration. 
To  know  a  man  we  must  know  his  surroundings,  and  the  times  in 
which  he  lived.  Boswell's  "  Life  of  Johnson  "  will  never  be  out  of 
date  for  family  reading.  It  can  be  laid  down  and  taken  up  without 
a  break  in  the  interest.  And  this  reminds  us  that  Dr.  Johnson  had 
that  intuitive  power  which  only  few  possess  of  getting  the  cream  of 
a  book  by  instant  apprehension  and  attention.  Some  people  may 
read  a  book  through  and  then  know  very  little  about  it,  while  others 
understand  and  comprehend  its  meaning  and  merits  at  a  glance. 
Some  books  are  good  to  dip  into,  but  not  to  .spend  many  hours  upon. 
Others  should  be  referred  to  again  and  again,  and  read  through  more 
than  once.  A  good  biographical  encyclopaedia  brought  down  to  our 
own  time  should  be  in  every  home  library.  When  we  hear  or  read 
of  some  great  act  or  work  achieved  in  art  or  science  we  wish  at  once 
to  know  who  the  man  was  and  what  stock  he  came  from. 


132  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

One  of  the  most  delightful  kinds  of  family  reading  is  that  of  such 
essays  as  can  be  read  aloud,  chatted  about  and  finished  at  a  sitting. 
Macaulay's  are  too  long  and  critical  for  this ;  they  must  be  studied 
alone.     But  William  Hazlitt,  Emerson,  and  Boyd,  and  even  Froude's 
"  Short    Studies    on    Great    Subjects,"    are    good     company    for 
social    evening    reading.     It    is    not    easy    to    recommend    special 
books    in    biography    or    essays,    without    a    personal    knowledge 
of  the   character,  tastes    and    ambition    of  those  who    need    such 
guidance.     Sex  as  well  as  age  has  to  be  considered,  for  while  the 
majority  of  good  books  are  suited  to  both  sexes  alike,  boys  and 
girls  have  each  a  special    literature  of  their  own.     Both  will  de- 
light and  find  profit  in  the  lives  of  those  who  have  overcome  diffi- 
culties, attained   their  object  by  perseverance  and  self-denial,  and 
been  a  blessing  to  others.     But  the  boy  will  naturally  have  a  heroic, 
the  girl  a  domestic  taste.     A  little  incident  will  illustrate  the  diffi- 
culty of  selecting  books  for  others.     A  young  friend  of  ours  desiring 
to  make  a  birthday  present  to  another  of  a  useful  book,  did  not  know 
what  to  choose.     By  accident  his  eye  fell  upon  a  sentence  in  one  of 
Bulwer  Lytton's  novels  which  ran  thus :     "  Whoever  you  are,  and 
whatever  your  condition  in  life,  read  the  '  Life  of  Robert  Hall.' " 
Here  the  question  seemed  settled  for  him,  and   he  lost  no  time  in 
making  the  purchase.    Some  time  afterward  he  asked  his  friend  how 
he  liked  the  book,  for  he  himself  had  not  read  it.     The  answer  was 
that  Robert  Hall  was  a  great  preacher  and  a  good  man,  who  must 
have  suffered  much  in  mind  and  body,  but  he  did  not  see  that  his 
life  was  more  interesting  than  the  lives  of  other  good  men.     Then 
our  friend  read  the  book  himself,  and  sought  eagerly  for  any  special 
reason  why  the  great  novel  writer  had  urged  every  one  to  read  the 
"  Life  of  Robert  Hall "  as  more  instructive  and  valuable  than  other 
good  lives.    Robert  Hall  had  been  subject  to  spells  of  insanity,  but  so 
had  Cowper,  and  Collins,  and  Swift,  and  many  other  great   minds. 
He  had  suffered  much  also  from  bodily  pain,  but  there  were  numbers 
of  greater  men  who  had  suffered  more.     He  wondered  why  Lord 
Lytton  had  selected  and  commended  it  above  all  others,  and  he 


THE    LIBKAKV    IX    THE    HOME.  1 33 

resolved    to    judge    for    himself  before    choosing    for    another    in 
future. 

As  lives  that  should  be  read  by  every  one,  those  of  Columbus,  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Nelson,  Wellington,  Napoleon. 
Michael  Angelo  and  Charles  the  Twelfth  of  Sweden,  occur  readily 
in  addition  to  those  already  referred  to.  The  lives  of  Raleigh 
and  Michael  Angelo  are  conspicuous  beyond  all  others  for  thju 
versatility  of  powers  they  exhibit ;  that  of  Newton  for  patience  in 
study  and  discovery;  that  of  Charles  the  Twelfth  for  an  indomitable 
will-power  never  exceeded  and  perhaps  hardly  equalled.  Beside  the 
great  commanders  on  sea  and  land  whom  I  have  named,  the  heroes  of 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  who  made  Great  Britain  the  mistress  of  the 
seas,  ought  to  fix  the  attention  in  reading  the  history  of  England. 
Charles  Dickens'  "  Child's  History  of  England  "  is  good  to  start  with 
in  the  nursery.  Hume  will  come  bye-and-bye,  and  after  that  the 
imagination  and  the  memory  will  find  the  volumes  of  ]Macaulay  and 
Froude  more  interesting  than  romance. 

It  is  well  in  the  library  at  home  to  have  some  fav^orite  representative 
of  every  art,  science  and  profession,  although  we  must  not  carry 
our  hero-worship  too  far  or  be  too  exclusive  in  the  choice  of  our 
representative  men.  Carlyle  and  Emerson  have  both  chosen  for 
their  readers,  but  every  one  can  make  a  selection  of  his  own.  In 
music,  painting,  sculpture,  poetry,  history,  we  may  choose  our  own 
favorites  as  we  come  to  know  them.  Gibbon  preferred  Livy  to  any 
other  Latin  historian,  and  Addison  preferred  Virgil  to  any  other 
Latin  poet.  Addison  himself  ought  not  to  be  neglected  as  one  of 
the  greatest  masters  of  gentle  humor  and  delicate  satire  in  the 
English  language.  His  papers  in  the  "Spectator"  are  delightful  as 
well  as  instructive. 

For  boys,  it  is  not  necessary  to  recommend  "  Robinson  Crusoe," 
the  "Arabian  Nights  "  or  "  Don  Quixote."  They  are  sure  to  find  their 
way  into  every  home  library. 

In  reading  history,  it  is  well  to  pause  now  and  then,  and  reflect 
upon  the  different  course  it  must  have  taken  if  this  or  that  event  had 


134  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

not  happened.  If  Hannibal  had  besieged  and  taken  Rome  after  the 
battle  of  Cannse  :  if  Harold  instead  of  William  of  Normandy  had 
won  at  Hastings ;  if  the  Prussians  under  Blucher  had  not  arrived  at 
Waterloo ;  if  King  James  and  all  his  Parliament  had  been  blown 
to  pieces,  and  the  Gunpowder  Plot  had  not  been  discovered  by  that 
mysterious  letter;  if  Queen  Victoria  had  been  shot  like  Presidents 
Lincoln  and  Garfield ;  these  and  a  hundred  similar  questions  will 
occur  as  we  read,  and  give  exercise  as  well  as  pleasure  to  the  imagi- 
nation and  reasoning  powers.  In  reading  biography  it  is  well  to 
reflect  upon  the  different  kinds  of  greatness  and  success,  the  various 
qualities,  and  the  several  paths  of  human  enterprise.  ,  Samuel 
Rogers,  the  poet  and  banker  of  London,  said  he  would  have  given 
half  he  was  worth  to  have  been  the  author  of  that  exquisite  farewell 
to  life,  by  Mrs.  Barbauld,  which  ends  with — 

"  Say  not  Good-night,  but  in  some  brighter  clime 
Bid  me  Good-morning; " 

and  General  Wolfe,  as  he  was  approaching  his  heroic  death  upon 
the  Heights  of  Abraham,  declared  that  he  would  rather  have  been 
the  author  of  Gray's  Elegy  than  have  taken  Quebec.  There  are 
diversities  of  gifts,  as  Ave  have  been  told,  and  one  star  differs  from 
another  star  in  glory. 

In  reading,  as  in  life,  it  is  good  for  us  to  have  some  special  line 
and  inclination.  Our  general  reading  and  the  gradual  insight  we 
gain  of  our  own  mind  and  character  will  help  us  to  choose  aright  both 
our  work  in  life  and  our  particular  studies.  But  whatever  our  des- 
tined path  may  be,  the  lives  of  great  men  in  all  callings  will  be  help- 
ful to  us.  Such  a  life  as  that  of  Thomas  Edwards,  the  Scottish 
naturalist,  is  a  monument  of  final  perseverance  and  triumph  over 
adverse  circumstances,  such  as  should  nerve  and  brace  every  earnest 
reader  of  it  to  do  with  all  his  might  whatever  he  finds  to  do. 

As  a  last  piece  of  advice,  let  the  young  reader  avail  himself  rever- 
ently and  earnestly  of  the  results  arrived  at  by  others.  You  have 
neither  time  nor  learning  to  pick  out  groups  of  words  out  of  the 


THE    LIBRARY    IN    THE    HOME.  I35 

dictionary,  and  trace  their  history  and  meaning  for  yourself.  But 
you  have  time  to  study  Trench  on  "  The  Study  of  Words,"  a  Httle 
book,  but  brimful  of  useful  knowledge  and  suggestive  thoughts. 
You  cannot  search  out  and  apply  the  proverbs  of  different  countries, 
or  even  of  your  own  English-speaking  race,  for  yourself,  but  you 
can  take  the  hand  of  the  same  great  teacher  as  he  leads  you  through 
"  The  Lessons  Contained  in  Proverbs,"  a  book  which  you  can  carry 
about  you  in  your  pocket  like  that  on  "  Words."  Wilmot's  "  Pleasures 
of  Literature  "  and  "  Summer  in  the  Country  "  are  little  books  equally 
portable,  but  each  contains  a  treasury  of  guidance  in  reading  and 
illustration  from  nature,  and  its  best  interpreters.  Read  and  cherish 
the  little  books  as  you  would  a  photograph  of  a  wondrous  pan- 
orama, or  the  miniature  of  a  dear  friend.  Help's  "  Companions  of 
my  Solitude,"  Boyd's  "Recreations  of  a  Country  Parson,"  Emerson's 
"  Society  and  Solitude,"  Thackeray's  "  Roundabout  Papers,"  and 
Washington  Irving's  charming  "Alhambra  "  are  all  good  for  family 
and  fireside  reading.  The  recent  pocket  classics,  like  "  English  Men  of 
Letters,"  edited  by  John  Morley,  the  "  Ancient  Classics  for  English 
Readers,"  edited  by  the  Rev.  W.  Lucas  Collins,  and  the  works  of 
Professor  J.  R.  Green,  of  Oxford,  in  history,  are  all  excellent  and  of 
convenient  size.  For  poetry,  the  last  edition  of  Bryant's  "  Library 
of  Poetry  and  Song  "  is  of  great  value  from  the  extent  of  its  selec- 
tions, the  biographical  dates  of  the  several  poets,  and  its  admirable 
indexes  which  enable  one  to  find  what  we  want,  either  by  author's 
name,  or  subject,  or  first  line.  In  natural  history  you  may  have  a 
rich  feast  for  very  little  cost.  That  ever-charming  work,  Gilbert 
White's  "  Natural  History  of  Selborne,"  Stanley's  "  History  of 
British  Birds,"  Audubon's  "  Quadrupeds  of  America"  and  "  Birds  of 
America,"  Mrs.  Agassiz'  "  First  Lessons  in  Natural  History,"  "  Wake 
Robin,"  by  Burroughs,  "  Child's  Book  of  Nature,"  by  W.  Hooker, 
"  Our  Feathered  Friends,"  and  "  Houses  without  Hands  "  and  "  Nat- 
ural History,"  by  Rev.  J.  G.  Wood,  Charles  Kingsley's  "  Glaucus," 
"  Seaside  Studies  in  Natural  History,"  by  E.  C.  and  A.  Agassiz. 
form  a   splendid  array,  and   )'ou  may  add  Buckland's  "  Curiosities 


136  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

of  Natural    History "  and   Hamerton's   "  Chapters   on   Animals "   if 
you  will. 

But  in  all  your  reading,  remember  that  you  do  not  live  to  read 
but  read  to  live.  Sow  that  you  may  reap ;  seek  that  you  may  find, 
learn  that  you  may  teach,  and  amid  all  your  learning  and  knowl- 
edge, learn  to  "  know  thyself" 


CHOICE  OF  OCCUPATION. 

"As  garment  draws  the  garment's  hem, 
Men  their  fortunes  bring  with  them ; 
By  right  or  wrong 

Land  and  goods  go  to  the  strong." 

VERYBODY,  whether  rich  or  poor,  must  do  something 
with  his  time  in  this  world,  and  those  who  do  not  have 
to  work  for  a  Hving,  really  have  a  harder  time  of  it 
than  those  who  do.  Doing  nothing  is  very  hard 
work,  because  it  has  to  "  kill  time,"  as  the  saying  is, 
and  time  is  the  hardest  creature  possible  to  kill ;  just  when  we  think 
we  have  killed  it,  the  poor  old  thing  comes  to  life  again  and 
stares  the  idle  man  or  woman  in  the  face  and  says :  "•  Now  what 
are  you  going  to  do  with  me  ?  "  If  we  wanted  to  punish  any  one 
with  great  severity,  there  is  no  work  which  could  be  set  him  which 
would  be  more  tiresome  than  to  do  nothing.  Only  imagine  a  person 
being  tried  in  a  court  of  law  for  doing  wrong,  and  the  learned  judge, 
after  the  jury  has  brought  in  a  verdict  of  guilty,  sentencing  him  to 
do  nothing  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  or  for  a  certain  length  of  time.  It 
would  be  worse  than  a  sentence  of  death,  because  while  we  live  our 
minds  and  bodies  demand  employment.  One  might  as  well  bind  a 
man  with  fetters  as  forbid  him  to  use  his  hands  and  feet.  It  would 
be  dreadful  to  have  to  sit  twirling  one's  thumbs  and  doing  nothing, 
even  for  a  single  day.  The  eyes  would  be  sure  to  fall  on  something 
which  the  mind  would  ask  the  hands  to  lay  hold  of  or  the  feet  to 
walk  to.  The  thoughts  would  be  sure  to  keep  on  saying:  "  I  ought 
to  be  doing  this  or  that ;  to-morrow  will  be  too  late." 

Some  people  think  tha'  men  and  women  only  work  because  they 

('37) 


138  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

are  driven  to  it,  and  that  if  bread  and  butter  grew  upon  the  trees 
and  fell  into  their  mouths  without  any  trouble,  they  would  stop 
workinf^  altogether.  This  is  not  so.  Happily,  it  is  not  possible  for 
any  one  but  a  lunatic  or  an  imbecile  to  be  utterly  idle  in  this  world, 
and  perhaps  even  they  have  some  employment  in  their  efforts  to 
think  clearly  which  others  do  not  notice.  But  if  a  man  or  woman 
is  a  rational  and  healthy  bemg,  he  or  she  must  keep  doing  something 
or  other  all  the  time,  until  they  grow  too  old  to  do  anything  else 
than  sleep,  and  dream  about  the  past  and  get  ready  to  die.  The 
effect  of  continued  idleness  is  severely  felt  in  mind  and  body,  and  is 
noticed  by  every  one  around  us.  "  The  sleep  of  the  laboring  man 
is  sweet,"  said  the  wise  writer  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  but  the 
man  who  does  no  hard  work  during  the  day  can  enjoy  no  refreshing 
sleep  at  night.  He  has  no  weariness  to  recover  from,  and  therefore 
needs  no  rest.  On  the  contrary,  nature  will  take  her  just  revenge 
upon  him  for  breaking  the  laws  of  health  and  happiness.  If  you 
have  not  walked  or  used  your  feet  all  day,  they  cannot  be  tired  at 
night,  except  with  the  dreadfully  tired  feeling  of  laziness.  If  your 
hands  have  done  nothing,  they  do  not  need  a  rest.  If  your  brain  has 
been  listless  and  idle  all  day,  then  nature  will  wind  it  up  at  night 
like  a  clock,  and  it  will  keep  on  ticking  and  striking  the  hours,  and 
beating  the  minutes  in  your  ear,  so  that  you  cannot  get  a  wink  of 
sleep,  and  are  glad  when  daylight  comes  so  that  you  may  turn  out 
of  bed  instead  of  in  it. 

Many  men  and  women — thousands  and  millions  of  them — are 
over-worked  and  need  more  rest  than  they  can  get.  Some  of  them 
break  down,  and  are  killed  by  over-work.  Hundreds  of  factory 
hands  and  store  girls  in  every  large  city  die  before  they  have  reached 
their  prime  of  life,  because  the  strain  of  work  is  too  great  for  their 
strength,  and  they  are  not  able  to  bear  it.  Such  cases  are  very  sad, 
and  every  year  fresh  efforts  are  being  made  by  kind  and  feeling 
masters — for  there  are  some  such  in  the  world,  though  not  too  many — 
to  lighten  the  burden  by  lessening  the  hours  of  labor. 

But  while  those  who  are  over-worked  are  to  be  pitied,  those  who 


CHOICE    OF    OCCUPATION.  1 39 

hav'e  no  work  at  all  are  more  unhappy  still.  It  is  better  to  die  of 
work  than  to  live  in  idleness,  and  let  the  powers  of  mind  and  body 
wear  away  for  want  of  using.  Many  persons  go  crazy  or  so  eccentric 
as  to  be  thought  crazy  lor  want  of  employment.  They  "  don't  know 
what  to  do  with  themselves,"  as  they  say,  and  the  world  does  not  know 
what  to  do  with  them.  They  bore  themselves  and  everybody  that 
comes  near  them.  As  they  do  nothing,  so  they  think  about  nothing, 
and  as  they  think  about  nothing  of  course  their  talk  is  all  about 
nothing.  The  man  or  woman  who  works  has  a  bright,  intelligent  look 
in  the  eyes,  even  if  they  are  sometimes  weary  and  anxious.  They 
feel  an  interest  in  life  because  they  bear  their  share  in  its  burdens. 
If  they  fall  in  the  hard  battle  of  life,  they  fall  nobly,  like  brave 
soldiers.  They  have  fought  a  good  fight  in  toiling  patiently  day  by 
day  to  win  bread  for  their  children  or  their  parents  as  well  as  for 
themselves.  The  working  man  i«  sometimes  God's  nobleman,  higher 
in  true  rank  than  the  man  who  is  rolling  in  luxury  and  wealth. 

It  does  not  always  follow,  however,  that  because  a  man  is  not 
working  he  is  not  willing  to  work.  When  the  supply  of  labor  is 
greater  than  the  demand,  there  must  always  be  some  who  at  times 
are  unemployed.  But  a  great  many  of  those  who  are  thus  often  out 
of  work  are  left  behind,  not  because  there  is  no  work  to  be  had,  but 
because  others  are  more  skilful  and  therefore  get  ahead  of  them. 
Every  man  should  aim  at  the  highest  excellence  in  his  work,  but  in 
order  to  attain  this,  one  must  have  ambition  to  excel  and  a  real 
interest  in  and  liking  for  one's  work.  The  choice  of  one's  occupation, 
business,  trade  or  profession  is  therefore  one  of  the  most  important 
acts  of  a  man's  life.  Next  to  choosing  a  good  wife  is  choosing  a 
good  business,  and  the  two  choices  are  intimately  connecte'd  with 
each  other.  If  a  man  chooses  a  business  for  which  he  is  unfitted  he 
will  be  a  failure,  not  a  success  in  it.  And  if  he  fail  in  his  work  how 
can  he  make  a  home  for  a  wife,  and  what  first-rate  woman  will  listen 
to  his  proposal  ?  She  will  reason — for  women  sometimes  do  reason, 
whatever  some  men  may  say  to  the  contrary — that  a  man  who  is  a 
poor  workman  will  be  a  poor  home-builder  and   husband.    Women 


I40  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

worth  winning  like  the  man  who  never  lags  behind,  but  goes  straight 
ahead  in  life  by  honesty,  good  conduct  and  skill  in  his  work.  "  Pity  is 
akin  to  love,"  they  say,  but  it  is  asking  too  much  to  expect  a  woman 
to  take  pity  on  a  man  who  cannot  take  heed  of  himself,  much  less  of 
a  family.  Take  heed,  then,  how  you  choose  your  occupation ;  and  when 
you  have  chosen  it,  devote  all  your  energies  to  make  yourself  a 
master  of  it. 

Many  influences,  however,  beside  his  own  free  choice  determine  a 
man's  occupation  in  life.  Parents  exercise  a  great  influence  in  this 
matter.  Some  fathers  take  it  for  granted  that  their  sons  will  follow 
their  own  occupation.  The  farmer  makes  his  son  a  farmer,  the 
carpenter  makes  his  son  a  carpenter,  the  builder  makes  him  a  builder, 
and  so  on.  .  But  very  often  the  son  has  no  taste  or  ability  whatever 
for  his  father's  occupation.  How  often  do  we  find  the  business  an 
energetic  father  who  took  pleasure. in  his  work  has  built  up  in  the 
course  of  a  lifetime,  destroyed  in  a  few  years  by  the  son  who  succeeds 
him,  but  has  no  such  fitness  for  it!  It  is  so  with  the  professions.  It 
does  not  follow  because  a  man's  father  was  a  skilful  surgeon  or 
physician  that  he  himself  will  be  so.  His  nerves  may  be  weak  where 
his  father's  were  strong.  His  hand  may  be  unsteady  where  his 
father's  was  firm.  Because  a  man's  father  was  a  great  painter,  it  does 
not  follow  that  he  will  be  a  great  painter  also.  As  well  might  we 
expect  the  son  of  a  great  general  or  navigator  to  inherit  the  military 
or  nautical  talent  of  his  father.  Yet  in  how  many  businesses  and 
professions  it  is  "  Father  and  Son  "  who  compose  the  firm,  when 
the  son  is  really  a  nonentity  in  it  so  far  as  skill  and  fitness  are  con- 
cerned ! 

Take  the  case  of  the  minister.  It  sometimes  happens  that  for  gen- 
eration after  generation  the  son  follows  the  father's  profession,  and 
sometimes  there  is  really  hereditary  fitness  for  the  work  handed  down 
and  transmitted,  like  the  ministerial  dress,  from  one  to  another.  This 
hereditary  fitness  is  more  frequent  in  the  ministerial  calling  than  in 
any  other,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  minister  is  more  at  home 
than  men  of  other  occupations,  and  preserv^es  the  same  stereotyped 


CHOICE    OF    OCCUPATION.  I4I 

manner  and  conversation  in  private  that  he  does  in  pubhc.  He  sees 
more,  therefore,  of  his  children,  and  impresses  his  habits  and  senti- 
ments, his  dogmas  and  feehngs  upon  them  more  powerfully,  because 
more  constantly  and  seriously,  than  is  the  case  with  men  of  secular 
occupation,  who  converse  with  their  boys  only  at  long  intervals  and 
are  separated  from  them  the  greater  part  of  the  day.  The  minister's 
son,  therefore,  acquiesces  without  a  murmur  when  his  father  tells  him 
that  he  is  going  to  send  him  to  a  theological  college  that  he  may 
study  for  the  ministry.  Very  often  he  is  the  more  reconciled  to  a  pro- 
fession which  he  would  not  himself  have  chosen  if  he  had  been  per- 
fectly free,  by  the  reflection  that  his  father's  and  forefathers'  names 
are  so  honored  in  the  particular  denomination  that  he  is  sure  to  get 
good  positions  and  be  made  much  of  by  the  laity.  In  outward  de- 
corum, solemnity  of  manner,  the  ready  use  of  religious  phrases  and 
the  like,  he  is  to  "the  manner  born,"  as  it  were,  so  familiar  have  these 
qualifications  been  to  him  from  the  nursery.  In  the  Biblical  and 
general  knowledge  required  for  the  pulpit  he  can  very  easily  array 
himself,  but  when  it  comes  to  originality  of  thought  and  power  of 
moving  others  by  extemporaneous  discourse,  the  son  is  often  a  very 
poor  successor  to  the  father  in  the  pulpit.  Of  course,  if  he  preaches 
from  manuscript,  he  may  conceal  his  inefficiency  for  a  time  by  preach- 
ing his  father's  or  some  other  man's  sermons.  But  he  is  pretty  sure 
to  be  found  out  at  last  and  to  be  estimated  at  his  real  figure.  And 
then  people  will  shrug  their  shoulders  and  say  that  he  is  a  very  well- 
meaning  young  man,  but  unfortunately  is  not  gifted  with  the  eloquence 
of  his  father ;  that  it  is  a  pity  he  did  not  choose  some  other  occupa- 
tion than  that  of  the  ministry  ;  that  his  manly  form  would  have  looked 
better  in  a  soldier's  uniform  than  in  a  preacher's  gown ;  or  that  he 
would  have  won  a  great  deal  more  custom  by  his  shallow  affability 
behind  a  counter  in  the  dry-goods  business  than  stuck  up  to  smirk 
and  simper  or  show  the  whites  of  his  eyes  in  a  pulpit. 

Sometimes  the  unhappy  man  who  becomes  a  minister  to  please 
his  father  or  gratify  the  ambition  of  his  doting  mother  and  sisters  is 
himself  conscious  of  his  being  out  of  place  in  the  pulpit,  and  longs 


142  THE  hearthstone;   ok,  life  at  home. 

to  be  delivered  from  a  restraint  and  responsibilities  for  which  he  has 
no  calling. 

Some  few  great  instances  there  have  been,  on  the  other  hand,  of 
young  men  who  hcxve  qntered  the  ministry  under  protest,  and  quit:: 
against  their  own  will,  who  have,  nevertheless,  become  famous 
preachers  and  attracted  immense  congregations  by  their  eloquence 
and  earnestness.  A  man  may  learn  to  like  an  occupation  which  at 
first  is  distasteful  to  him.  Some  little  accident  or  incident  may  change 
the  current  of  his  thoughts  and  feelings.  Not  seldom  a  disappoint- 
ment in  love,  when  a  man  has  got  over  the  first  terrible  distress  and 
anguish  of  learning  that  he  has  been  loving  one  who  never  cared  a 
straw  for  him,  but  had  given  her  affections,  if  she  had  any,  to  another, 
and  yet  allowed  him  to  woo  her  in  delusive  hope,  changes  the  whole 
character  and  aspirations  and  gives  a  tremendous,  almost  a  desperate, 
energy  to  a  young  man's  career.  Many  great  preachers  and  mission- 
aries have  been  converted  by  such  a  terrible  heart-sorrow  to  absolute 
self-abnegation  and  self-consecration  in  the  work  of  the  ministry.  One 
of  the  greatest,  and  in  the  opinion  of  some  very  able  judges  of  ser- 
mons, the  greatest  preacher  of  the  present  century,  Frederick  William 
Robertson,  entered  the  ministry  at  the  earnest  desire  of  his  family 
against  his  own  choice.  He  wished  to  be  a  soldier,  and  his  sermons 
are  remarkable  for  their  courageous  and  aggressive  tone.  Sins  and 
vices  assumed  to  him  the  aspect  of  a  rebel  army  arrayed  against  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  few  who  ever  heard  him  could  forget  the  thrill 
produced  by  his  appeals  when  he  urged  men  to  enlist  under  the  ban- 
ner of  Christ  as  the  Captain  of  Salvation. 

It  sometimes,  though  rarely,  happens  that  a  man  has  supreme 
ability  in  several  lines.  Michael  Angelo  and  Leonardo  Da  Vinci  are 
notable  instances  of  this  versatile  genius,  but  Lord  Bacon  was  great 
in  natural  science,  in  mental  philosophy,  in  theology  and  in  law. 
Shakspeare  has  been  called  a  "  myriad-minded  man,"  but  practical 
success  did  not  attend  him  in  life  because  he  did  not  work  steadily  at 
any  daily  labor.  There  have  been  men  and  women,  however,  who 
have  achieved  success  in  more  kinds  of  work  than  one.     Some  men, 


CHOICE    OF    OCCUPATION.  1 43 

like  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  have  been  soldiers,  sailors,  inventors,  poets, 
historians  and  the  like.  But,  as  a  rule,  each  man  and  woman  has  his 
or  her  own  gift,  talent,  and  calling,  and  the  great  thing  is  to  find  out 
what  it  is.  It  is  generally  the  "  ne'er  do  weel  "  who  goes  fi"om  one 
thing  to  another  and  fails  in  each.  "A  rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss," 
says  an  old  proverb,  and  life  is  too  short  to  allow  of  our  trying  our 
hand  at  half  a  dozen  trades  before  we  fix  upon  the  right  one. 

How  many  a  lad,  when  he  looks  upon  the  sea  stretching  away  into 
the  boundless  distance  and  sees  the  white-sailed  ships  that  move 
majestically  on  it  like  things  of  life,  is  seized  with  a  restless  desire  to 
be  a  sailor.  He  pictures  the  foreign  ports  where*  he  will  land,  and 
the  strange  people  he  will  see ;  he  longs  to  see  the  tropical  splendor 
of  the  sunny  south,  or  the  sublime  desolation  of  the  northern  seas. 
It  seems  womanish  to  him  to  stay  at  home  and  work  at  some  hum- 
drum calling,  and  die  like  his  fathers,  knowing  nothing  of  the  great 
world  except  one  little  corner  of  it.  Even  a  father's  objections  and  a 
mother's  tears  are  not  strong  enough  in  their  influence  to  keep  him 
ashore.  Away  he  sails  till  his  native  land  is  left  far  away  behind 
him.  Sometimes  the  rough  experience  of  a  sailor's  life  suits  his  hardy 
and  adventurous  nature,  but  in  many  instances  he  repents  his  choice 
before  the  first  voyage  is  over  and  wishes  he  had  stayed  on  land. 
But  if  he  now  abandons  the  sea  after  some  months  of  seamanship,  he 
will  find  it  harder  to  settle  down  into  the  routine  of  trade  or  business 
than  before.  Many  captains  even  are  heard  regretting  that  they 
chose  the  seafaring  life,  and  advising  young  lads  not  to  do  the 
same. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  regular  attention  to  commerce 
or  trade  prevents  a  man  from  feeling  an  interest  in  anything  eke  and 
makes  his  mind  narrow  and  unsympathetic.  Some  of  the  greatest 
of  our  modern  poets  and  historians  have  been  bankers  and  merchants; 
many  farmers  and  field  laborers,  as  well  as  clerks  in  public  and  private 
offices  of  business,  have  written  beautiful  poems  and  stories,  or  made 
great  political  .speeches  and  been  chosen  by  their  fellow-citizens  to 
represent  them  in  the  national  legislature.     A  man's  mind  may  travel 


144  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home.  / 

far  and  wide  while  he  is  toiling  with  his  hands  and  arms.  Of  course, 
however,  he  must  not  forget  what  he  is  about  or  let  his  imagination 
interfere  with  his  figures  or  his  mechanical  skill. 

To  succeed  in  any  wprk  one  must  have  one's  heart  in  it.  When  a 
man  gets  up  in  the  morning  it  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
whether,  when  he  bids  his  home  good-bye  for  the  day,  he  thinks 
"  Now  for  another  day's  slavery  "  at  that  abominable  trade  or  busi- 
ness, or  as  he  looks  at  the  clock  feels  eager  to  be  at  his  desk  in  the 
store,  or  at  his  work  in  the  field,  and  go  on  with  the  job  he  is  doing, 
just  where  he  left  off  yesterday.  It  is  pleasant  to  watch  the  honest 
pride  and  pleasure  which  some  men  take  in  their  work.  The 
gardener  points  with  kindling  eye  to  his  beautiful  flower-beds,  and 
as  he  culls  some  pretty  specimens  tells  you  all  about  the  nature  of 
the  soil  and  the  time  and  trouble  he  has  taken  to  make  such  and 
such  plants  grow  in  it,  or  asks  you  what  you  think  of  the  shape  of  the 
beds,  the  effect  of  his  combinations  of  colors,  the  neatly  trimmed 
borders,  the  even  grass  plots,  the  greenhouse  with  its  tropical  and 
early  produce.  The  cabinet  maker  shows  you  his  last  piece  of  work, 
and  tells  you  how  long  it  took  him  to  carry  out  his  ideal  of  what 
the  piece  of  furniture  should  be  in  design  and  ornamentation.  The 
artist  begs  you  to  notice  the  light  and  shade  in  his  last  picture,  and 
tell  him  what  you  think  of  the  effect  of  his  grouping  and  colors. 
The  builder,  as  his  edifice  rises  higher  and  higher,  stands  in  front  of 
it  every  now  and  then  to  feast  his  imagination  on  what  it  will  be  when 
it  is  finished  and  ready  for  occupation.  The  printer  is  well  pleased 
when  he  sees  his  proof-sheets  so  free  from  errors  and  looking  so 
neat  and  clear.  The  bookbinder  comes  next  with  a  feeling  of 
satisfaction  that  he  has  put  the  printer's  sheets  together  in  such  a 
strong,  compact  and  elegant  binding.  The  publisher,  third  of  these 
three  book-makers,  rubs  his  hands  with  content  as  he  assures  him- 
self that  no  other  firm  in  the  business  could  have  tur-ned  out  a  more 
beautiful  volume  at  a  more  reasonable  price.  Lastly,  comes  the 
solitary  brain  that  set  the  whole  of  these  men  working — the  poor 
author  who  sat  up  late  at  night,  and  toiled  long  hours  by  day  to 


CHOICE    OF    OCCUPATION.  I45 

write  these  original  thoughts,  or  facts,  or  discoveries  which  the 
printer  has  printed,  and  the  binder  has  bound,  and  the  pubhshei' 
has  pubHshed.  How  miserable  would  work  be  if  there  were  no 
pleasure  to  be  found  in  it !  Who  would  do  with  his  might  what  his 
hand  found  to  do,  if  it  brought  him  nothing  but  headaches  and  heart- 
aches, weariness  and  disappointment  ? 

Even  in  infancy  man  begins  to  rejoice  in  the  work  of  his  own 
hands.  The  childish  hands  that  build  an  Aladdin's  Palace  or  a 
Noah's  Ark  with  little  blocks  of  wood,  are  clapped  together  in 
ecstasy  when  the  work  is  done,  and  papa  or  mamma  look  at  it  with 
feigned  wonder  and  admiration.  How  eager  is  the  child,  when  it  be- 
gins with  pencil  or  chalk  to  make  figures  on  the  paper  or  the  board, 
to  turn  out  a  first-rate  article  in  men's  or  donkeys'  heads !  The 
artistic  genius  of  the  child  concentrates  all  its  efforts  on  the  pig's 
curly  tail  or  the  old  lady's  bonnet.  If  the  child  be  of  a  serious 
turn,  the  face  it  draws  will  have  a  pensive  and  sedate  appearance, 
like  a  lion  in  love,  or  "  puss  in  boots,"  But  if  the  child  be  a 
humorist  it  will  draw  its  subject  weeping  or  laughing,  and  the  more 
comic  the  child's  fancies  the  funnier  will  be  the  picture.  What 
pride  and  delight  there  is  in  this,  but  not  greater  than  that  of  the 
boy  who  has  learned  to  cut  out  with  his  knife  the  model  of  a  ship, 
and  who  hastens  to  try  its  sailing  capacities  on  the  nearest  pond. 
No  captain  or  shipbuilder  in  the  United  States  feels  prouder  than  he. 
How  gleefully  do  he  and  his  playmates  find  a  name  for  the  tiny 
craft,  and  call  her  the  "  Pride  of  the  Ocean,"  or  the  "  Gem  of  the  Sea," 
and  fling  an  old  shoe  after  her  as  she  leaves  the  port  in  the  meadow 
to  scud  around,  and  after  a  stormy  voyage  of  a  few  minutes  arrives 
safely  at  the  same  dock  of  pebbles  from  whence  she  sailed.  The 
same  love  of  the  chosen  work  and  pride  in  doing  it  well  attends  the 
boy  or  girl  who  wins  the  prize  in  a  favorite  study.  They  have  denied 
themselves  many  pleasure  trips  and  social  amusements  that  they 
might  devote  every  moment  of  leisure  to  the  coming  examination 
and  competition.  At  last  the  dreaded  yet  longed  for  time  has  come. 
Preparation  is  over;  trial  begins.    "  Well  done,"  is  the  verdict,  whether 

JO 


146  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

the  prize  be  first  or  second.  The  labor  has  not  been  in  vain  ; 
the  conscience  whispers,  "  I  did  my  best,  and  I  feel  all  the  better 
for  it." 

It  is  no  laughing  matter,  but  rather  a  spectacle  to  feel  sad  at,  when 
we  see  a  man  who  would  really  have  attained  excellence  in  one  occu- 
pation foolishly  devoting  himself  to  another  for  which  he  has  no  special 
talent  at  all,  except  in  his  own  conceit.  Yet  how  often  do  we  sec 
this!  We  find  a  man  painting  pictures  who  ought  to  be  shovelling 
coal,  and  another  giving  lessons  in  grammar  who  cannot  read  or 
write  correctly.  Anybody  who  can  stamp  around,  and  rant,  and 
rave,  and  frown,  and' start,  and  roll  his  eyes,  and  throw  his  head 
back,  thinks  he  is  a  born  actor.  He  resolves  to  eclipse  Edwin  Booth 
or  Salvini,  but  is  amazed  at  seeing  a  broad  grin  on  every  face  at  his 
most  pathetic  passages,  and  at  finding  himself  regarded  rather  as  a 
remarkable  specimen  of  the  donkey  than  as  a  tragedian. 

He  is  like  the  youthful  artist  who  has  to  explain  in  writing  under 
each  sketch  what  it  represents,  otherwise  "  Mother  Eve  and  the 
apple  "  would  be  taken  for  the  cook  about  to  construct  an  apple- 
dumpling,  and  the  gorgeous  palace  be  mistaken  for  a  mud  hut.  The 
label,  "  This  is  a  man's  head,"  is  our  only  safeguard  against  thinking 
it  something  else,  and,  without  an  explanation,  it  would  baffle  our 
skill  to  tell  "  which  are  Daniel  and  which  is  the  Lions."  So  many 
people  think  themselves  first-class  in  the  work  they  are  most 
inefficient  in.  Did  you  ever  meet  a  cook  who  did  not  think  his  or 
her  cooking  the  very  best  cooking  possible  ?  When  a  whole  family 
is  afflicted  with  spasms,  cramps,  dyspepsia,  groanings,  ill  humor, 
mutual  snappishness  and  quarrelling,  a  total  loss  of  cheerfulness, 
atheism  or  superstition,  belief  in  witchcraft,  and  a  desire  to  torture 
and  burn  other  people  alive,  soon  after  they  have  all  partaken 
innocently  of  the  new  cook's  latest  and  most  stalwart  effort  in 
dough  and  invention  in  pie-crust,  will  the  cook  admit  for  a  single 
instant  that  she  has  been  the  cause  of  this  indigestive  anguish  and 
stomachic  miser)'?  Certainly  not.  She  will  put  her  elbows  a-kimbo, 
and  stand  you  out  to  your  face  that  pie-crust  is  her  particular  forte,  and 


CHOICE    OF    OCCUPATION. 


147 


that  her  synthetical  method  of  mixing  the  ingredients  of  a  pudding 
has  made  her  a  domestic  blessing  to  every  family  she  has  lived  with. 
Perhaps  the  chambermaid  may  really  possess,  without  knowing  it, 
the  requisite  genius  for  broiling  a  chop  or  boiling  a  potato,  had  she 
not  been  misled  into  chamber-work.  The  too  solid  cook  also 
may  have  her  divine  afflatus.  She  may  be  well  adapted  for  platform 
oratory  or  the  character  of  fish-wife  on  the  stage.  But  she  has 
chosen  the  very  thing  for  which  heaven  has  denied  her  the  qualifi- 
cations, and  society  has  to  suffer  because  genius  has  mistaken  its 
department. 

How  many  girls  go  on  strumming  on  the  piano  and  singing  all 
the  evening,  till  every  other  house  in  the  block  is  posted  as  "  To  Let," 
who  have  not  the  slightest  idea  of  either  harmony  or  melody,  bass  or 
treble,  a  sharp  or  a  flat!  But  the  milkmaid  at  the  dairy  and  the  farm, 
who  was  never  taught  a  note  in  the  scale,  she  can  sing  like  the  night- 
ingale and  make  men  stop  to  listen  as  if  suddenly  they  heard  sweet 
sounds  from  heaven.  O  that  the  town  miss  with  no  talent  could 
sometimes  change  places  with  the  country  lass  who  has  music  in  her 
throat,  in  her  feet,  and  in  her  heart.  All  we  can  say  is,  if  the  melo- 
dious dairy-maid  cannot  be  our  songstress,  for  pity's  sake  don't  let 
the  inharmonious  mademoiselle  of  fashion,  whose  throat  is  like  a 
nutmeg  grater,  make  us  vibrate  with  her  discord  from  top  to  toe. 
Thanks  for  this  every  day  improving  land  of  ours  in  which  strangers- 
are  so  quick  in  detecting  merit  and  so  generous  in  bringing  it  to  the 
front.  The  boy  or  girl  with  real  genius  in  them,  however  poorly 
born,  and  clad,  and  fed,  is  pretty  sure  in  America  of  recognition  and 


encou  ragement. 


All  the  assistance  and  introductions  in  the  world,  however,  will 
not  change  a  stale  loaf  into  a  leg  of  mutton,  or  make  copper  pass 
current  as  gold.  Let  fathers  and  mothers,  therefore,  be  sure  they  do 
not  encourage  vain  hopes  in  their  children  by  telling  each  child  who 
can  jingle  rhymes  together  that  he  or  she  is  born  a  poet;  that 
their  vocation  is  music,  because  they  can  make  a  noise ;  painting, 
because  they  can  daub  unlikenesses ;  navigation,  because  they  have 


148  THE    hearthstone;    or,    life   at    home. 

been  on  a  ferry-boat ;  or  oratory,  because  they  use  big  words  and  roll 
out  their  platitudes.  When  you  see  one  advertisement,  "  Wanted  a 
good  hand  at  cobbling,"  and  another,  "Wanted  a  professor  of  lan- 
guages," be  quite  sure  in  your  own  mind  which  position,  if  either, 
you  are  fitted  for  before  you  apply  for  it.  Many  a  lawyer  would 
have  done  well  at  feeding  swine;  many  a  minister  would  make  a 
fortune  as  a  ventriloquist,  so  sound  is  he  in  wind  and  so  windy  in 
sound;  many  an  actor  should  turn  scene-shifter,  and  some  scene- 
shifters  have  before  now  made  good  actors ;  many  a  physician  should 
be  dressing  leather  instead  of  wounds,  and  be  engaged  in  lath  and 
plaster  instead  of  plaster  without  the  lath,  unless  his  patient  serve  for 
it.  A  life  insurance  agent  who  will  feel  your  mental  and  financial 
pulse  and  harrow  up  your  soul  about  sudden  death,  loss  of  faculties, 
untimely  grave,  starving  family,  suffering  children  going  around  in 
ten  years'  time  begging  their  bread  or  supported  by  the  State,  has 
often  been  a  parson  in  his  earlier  years,  and  he  turns  his  pulpit 
moral  suasion  and  fearful  pictures  to  good  account  in  his  business. 
There  are  bishops  who  would  do  credit  to  a  bar-room,  and  circuit 
preachers  who  are  more  amusing  than  the  showman. 

It  is  certain  that  many  ministers  would  make  excellent  law- 
yers, and  that  many  lawyers  would  make  a  good  appearance  in 
the  pulpit.  This  is  perhaps  the  reason  why,  in  ancient  times,  the 
office  of  judge  was  always  combined  with  that  of  religious  teacher 
or  priest.  In  our  own  times,  the  minister  is  very  often  the  family 
adviser  about  wills  and  property  arrangements,  and  he  is  also  not 
infrequently  the  prescriber  of  medicine.  Many  clergymen  have  had  a 
thorough  medical  training  with  a  view  to  missionary  work  in  dis- 
tant lands,  and  not  a  few  physicians  seek  ordination  and  exchange 
medicine  for  theology. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  youth  himself  is  the  most  likely  to  know  by 
a  kind  of  instinct  what  work  and  occupation  in  life  will  be  most  likely 
to  suit  him.  But  this,  as  has  been  shown,  is  not  invariably  the  case. 
Still,  the  cases  where  a  boy's  own  nature  does  not  point  him  to  one 
selection  rather  than  another  are  exceptional.     Most  men  who  have 


CHOICE    OF    OCCUPATION.  I49 

achieved  greatness  in  any  work  have  begun  early.  "  The  child  is 
father  of  the  man,"  and  in  boyhood  those  qualities  are  manifested 
which  become  fully  developed  in  the  subsequent  career.  The  great 
scholar  is  generally  noted  in  childhood  for  a  wonderful  memory.  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  who  invented  when  a  boy  the  art  of  flying  a  kite, 
discovered  when  a  man  the  law  of  gravitation.  He  had  no  pleasure 
in  mere  playthings  such  as  other  children  care  for,  but  delighted  in 
toys  of  intricate  mechanism  which  employed  his  observant  young 
mind  in  understanding  it.  Galileo,  it  is  said,  would  be  lost  in  phil- 
osophical reflection  whenever  he  saw  a  top  spun  by  his  playmates. 
Mozart,  when  a  mere  infant,  exhibited  that  wonderful  inspiration  for 
music  which  determined  his  future  vocation.  Nicbuhr,  Arnold,  and 
Thirlwall,  the  two  former  historians  of  Rome,  and  the  last  named 
of  Greece,  were  all  remarkable  in  their  early  childhood  for  their  in- 
tense observation  and  retention  of  facts.  Hogarth  and  many  other 
famous  painters,  indeed  almost  all  of  them,  have  been  remarkable  in 
childhood  for  the  quickness  of  their  eye,  their  imitative  powers,  and 
fondness  for  drawing.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  when  a  child,  was  captivated 
by  Border  minstrelsy.  The  life  of  that  remarkable  man  whose  name 
is  reverenced  by  every  American,  Benjamin  Franklin,  ought  to  be  in 
the  hands  of  every  lad  who  is  trying  to  decide  upon  his  future  occupa- 
tion in  life.  "At  ten  years  old,"  he  writes  in  his  Autobiography, 
"  I  was  taken  (from  school)  to  help  my  father  in  the  business,  which 
was  that  of  a  tallow  chandler  and  soap-boiler;  a  business  to  which 
he  was  not  bred,  but  had  assumed  on  his  arrival  in  New  England, 
because  he  found  that  his  dyeing  trade,  being  in  little  request,  would 
not  maintain  his  family.  Accordingly  I  was  employed  in  cutting 
wicks  for  the  candles,  and  filling  the  moulds  for  cast  candles,  attend- 
ing the  shops,  going  of  errands,  etc.  I  disliked  the  trade,  and  had 
a  strong  inclination  to  go  to  sea,  but  my  father  declared  against 
it;  but  residing  near  the  water,  I  was  much  in  it  and  on  it.  I  learned 
to  swim  well  and  to  manage  boats;  and  when  embarked  with  other 
boys,  I  was  conmionly  allowed  to  govern,  especially  in  any  case 
of  difficulty." 


1-50  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

The  men  who  are  to  lead  the  world  and  come  to  the  front  in  the 
later  battles  of  life  are  generally  leaders  of  their  school-fellows,  in  the 
play-ground  if  not  always  in  the  school-room.  Individual  force  of 
character  soon  makes  its  appearance,  and  is  acknowledged  as  soon  as 
seen.  Whatever  the  choice  of  occupation  and  the  results  that  follow 
from  that  choice,  a  man's  natural  force  or  weakness  of  character  is 
quite  sure  to  display  itself.  As  those  who  cross  the  seas,  according 
to  the  old  poet,  change  their  climate  but  not  their  disposition,  so  those 
that  change  their  occupation  will  exhibit  the  same  characteristics. 
The  man  who  reasons  about  things  will  continue  his  reasoning  whether 
he  be  an  apothecary  putting  up  prescriptions  or  a  blacksmith  shoeing 
horses.  The  man  who  takes  everything  for  granted  and  walks  by 
bodily  sight  only,  and  never  asks  the  why  and  wherefore  of  anything 
he  comes  in  contact  with,  will  be  the  same  unreasoning  machine 
whether  he  drive  a  team  or  feed  the  brutes  of  a  menagerie.  The 
same  instinctive  love  of  what  is  beautiful  to  the  eye  will  show  itself 
whether  a  man  be  adorning  a  house  or  painting  a  landscape.  The 
sense  and  sentiments  of  religion  and  poetry  will  be  with  him  whether 
he  earn  his  living  as  a  market  gardener  or  a  school-teacher. 

The  old  motto,  "  Know  thyself,"  was  said  to  have  been  sent  from 
heaven  for  human  guidance.  It  is  not  so  easy  a  study,  this  self- 
knowledge,  as  some  people  seem  to  think.  A  great  many  men  and 
women  pass  all  through  this  life  without  ever  knowing  more  of  them- 
selves than  the  sheep  and  oxen  do  of  their  own  individuality  and 
destiny.  It  is  very  difficult  to  believe  that  there  is  any  future  life 
awaiting  such  grovelling  earth-worms  as  form  the  greater  portion  of 
the  human  race.  The  contemplation  of  the  baseness  and  stupidity 
of  his  fellow-men  led  Solomon,  who  was  called  the  wisest  of  men,  to 
doubt,  if  not  thoroughly  to  disbelieve,  in  any  future  destiny  for  them. 
"There  is  no  difference,"  he  argued,  "between  man  and  brute;  as 
the  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the  other ;  both  are  of  the  dust  and  both  turn 
to  dust  again."  If  something  within  you  whispers,  "  It  shall  not  be 
so  with  me ;  I  shall  not  all  die ;  I  shall  rise  above,  not  sink  below, 
the  common  horizon  of  existence ;  I  feel  a  higher  pulse  and  nobler 


CHOICE    OF    OCCUPATION.  I^I 

aspirations  beating  within  me  than  those  of  the  base,  the  mean,  the 
sordid  and  the  dirty,"  then  carry  these  high  thoughts  with  you 
in  all  your  work.  Remember  that  no  honest  labor  is  degrading 
in  itself,  and  that  man  has  the  heaven-given  power  of  shedding 
his  own  internal  light  upon  the  external  darkness  around  him. 
"Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might,"  and 
whether  it  make  you  rich  or  not  it  will  make  you  a  better  man. 
But  it  will  also  make  you  comfortable  externally  and  enable  you  to 
give  comforts  to  your  wife  and  children  and  all  who  look  to  you  for 
help.  It  is  only  the  lazy  man  who  is  always  counting  the  mouths  he 
has  to  feed.  There  is  a  curious  principle  involved  in  the  new  system 
known  as  Co-operation,  which  is  steadily  making  its  way  in  various 
cities  both  of  the  old  and  the  new  world.  It  is,  that  the  more  chil- 
dren you  have  the  richer  you  will  be,  because  the  more  provisions 
you  will  have  to  buy  in  order  to  feed  them.  This  seems  quite 
ridiculous  when  first  stated.  Common  sense  bawls  out  at  once, 
"Why,  what  wretched  nonsense  !  How  can  I  be  better  off  with  seven 
children  than  I  was  with  one  or  two  ?  How  can  I  be  as  rich  when 
I  have  to  buy  twenty  pounds  of  bread  a  week  as  I  was  when  I  bought 
five  ?  "  But  when  he  learns  that  on  this  system  all  the  profits,  after 
the  cost  of  management,  made  under  the  co-operative  plan  upon  the 
ordinary  retail  prices,  are  saved  as  capital  for  the  purchaser,  a  man 
begins  to  see  that  the  greater  his  outlay  the  greater  also  are  his 
profits. 

A  similar  law  obtains  in  a  man's  or  woman's  life-work.  The  more 
we  sow  the  more  we  shall  reap.  The  more  earnestness  and  industry 
we  bestow  upon  the  occupation  we  have  chosen,  or  which  circum- 
stances have  allotted  us,  the  greater  will  be  the  returns,  the  larger 
the  profits.  These  profits  are  not  to  be  estimated  only  by  money.  It 
is  a  great  thing  and  should  be  every  man's  ambition  to  provide  a 
comfortable  home  for  those  belonging  to  him,  and  to  make  that  home 
as  beautiful  as  possible  with  all  that  can  add  to  the  comfort  and  hap- 
piness of  living  in  it.  He  should  try  to  save  all  he  can  against  the 
evening  of  his  life  and  the  time  when  "  the  night  comcth  in  which  no 


152  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

man  can  work."  As  his  eye  rests  upon  house  and  garden,  fruit-trees 
and  flowers,  live-stock  and  furniture,  it  is  a  grateful  feeling  to  know 
that  they  are  all  his  own  and  have  been  won  by  the  honest  labor  of 
brain  and  muscle.  But  the  man  who  has  thus  built  his  house,  not  on 
the  sands  of  idleness,  but  on  the  rock  of  industry  and  independence, 
has  other  profits  for  his  toil  than  house  and  lands  and  produce.  He 
has  educated  himself  by  the  noblest  sort  of  education,  that  of  hard 
work  and  honest  ambition.  While  others  have  lagged  behind  at  the 
pothouse  or  the  gaming  table,  trusting  to  some  turn  of  luck  that  will 
never  come  to  recover  lost  time  and  neglected  opportunities,  the  suc- 
cessful working  man  has  never  loitered,  but  has  pressed  forward 
steadily,  not  by  fits  and  starts,  in  the  race  of  life.  He  has  reached 
the  goal  and  won  the  prize,  not  only  of  material  good  but  of  the 
sweetest  of  all  feelings,  approval  within.  He  can  reflect  with  honest 
satisfaction  that  he  did  not  owe  his  success  to  luck,  but  to  law,  the 
law  which  teaches  that  "  whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  he  shall  also 
reap."  Those  that  sow  to  the  wind  of  idleness  will  reap  the  whirl- 
wind of  poverty  and  degradation.  Those  of  whom  it  may  be  said,  as 
of  "  the  Village  Blacksmith," 

"  Toiling,  rejoicing,  sorrowing, 
Onward  through  life  he  goes ; 
Each  morning  sees  some  task  begin, 
*  Each  evening  sees  it  close ; 

Something  attempted,  something  done, 
Has  earned  a  night's  repose," 

deserve  all  that  they  have  earned.  And  the  best  reward  of  all  is  the 
consciousness  of  duty  done  and  rest  well  earned.  This  is  the  true 
socialism,  to  help  others,  but  be  independent  one's  self;  to  "  owe  no 
man  anything  except  brotherly  love."  This  is  a  noble  ambition,  that 
of  rising  from  being  an  employe  of  others  to  being  an  employer  of 
others.  Choose  the  occupation  you  are  best  fitted  for  and  feel  most 
interest  in ;  give  your  heart  and  energy  to  it ;  then  the  world  instead 
of  being  your  master  will  be  your  servant,  and  in  the  good  old  Bible 
words,  "  When  thou  liest  down  thou  shalt  not  be  afraid ;  yea,  thou 
shalt  lie  down  and  thy  sleep  shall  be  sweet." 


IN  THE  SICK-ROOM ;  OR,  SANITARY  NURSING. 


"O  woman!  in  our  hours  of  ease 
Uncertain,  coy,  and  hard  to  please — 
And  variable  as  the  shade 
By  the  light  quivering  aspen  made; 
When  pain  and  anguish  wring  the  brow, 
A  mmistering  angel  thou!" 


iF  every  law  of  life  were  faithfully  obeyed,  its  nature  and 
application  having  been  n  ad,^  part  of  the  training  of 
every  child,  and  repeated  till  as  familiar  as  the  multipli- 
cation table,  there  is  no  doubt  that  dying  would  be  as 
unconscious  an  act  as  that  of  birth.  Now  and  then  such 
a  case  is  seen,  but  the  physician  of  widest  experience  can  record  but 
few.  Dr.  Richardson,  whose  name  is  famiHar  to  all  as  one  of  the 
popular  scientific  writers  on  the  hygiene  of  daily  life,  and  who  has 
observed  with  the  utmost  minuteness  the  course  of  life  and  death  in' 
thousands  of  patients,  records  but  ten  such  cases.  After  a  life  of 
simple  obedience  to  all  natural  law,  temperance  in  all  things  having 
secured  sound  body  and  sound  mind  up  to  advanced  age,  the  intel- 
lectual faculties  seemed  quietly  to  slip  away.  To  sleep  and  not  to- 
dream  was  the  pressing  need,  till  nearly  all  the  hours  passed  in  this 
manner.  "  The  awakenings  were  shorter  and  shorter;  painless,  care- 
less, happy  awakenings  to  the  hum  of  a  busy  world,  to  the  merry 
sounds  of  children  at  play,  to  the  sounds  of  voices  offering  aid  ;  to  the  . 
effort  of  talking  on  simple  topics  and  recalling  events  that  have  dwelt 
longest  on  the  memory ;  apd  then  again  the  overpowering  sleep. 
Thus  on  and  on,  until  at  length,  the  intellectual  nature  last,  the 
instinctive  and  merely  animal  functions,  now  no  longer  required  to 

(153) 


154  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

sustain  the  higher  faculties,  in  their  turn  succumb  and  fall  into  the 
inertia." 

This  is  natural  death,  and  not  many  generations  will  pass  before 
death  by  disease  will  be  counted  unnatural,  and  "  this  act  of  death, 
now,  as  a  rule,  so  dreaded,  because  so  premature,  shall,  arriving  only 
at  its  appointed  hour,  suggest  no  terror,  inflict  no  agony." 

This  is  for  the  future.  For  the  present  we  are  still  the  victims  of 
inherited  or  acquired  or  accidental  disease.  Every  house  is  at  some 
time  in  its  existence  a  hospital ;  every  woman,  whether  fitted  for  it 
or  not,  a  nurse.  That  in  the  larger  cities  and  towns  a  corps  of  trained 
nurses  is  yearly  made  ready  for  this  unending  battle  with  disease, 
does  not  affect  the  fact,  that  the  majority  must  remain  untrained.  The 
rich  can  call  upon  efficient  aid ;  the  poor,  if  in  cities,  can  have  the 
comfort  of  a  well-ordered  hospital ;  but  where  thousands  can  be  cared 
for  by  these  methods,  millions  are  beyond  their  reach,  and  must  trust 
to  such  care  as  can  be  given  in  the  home. 

A  vital  necessity  then  exists  for  some  knowledge  of  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  nursing,  and  hopeless  as  such  education  might  seem  for  all 
but  the  intelligent,  it  has  already  been  proved  that  even  the  poorest 
and  apparently  most  stupid  working-woman  can  understand  and  carry 
out  the  simple  precepts,  laid  down  by  a  teacher  wise  enough  to  know 
how  to  be  simple.  In  one  of  our  largest  cities  during  the  past  winter, 
a  woman  of  wide  and  energetic  benevolence  brought  together  through 
a  course  of  several  weeks  some  two  hundred  women,  who  listened 
wiJi  an  eagerness  almost  pitiful  to  the  careful  instructions  of  physi- 
cians, who  had  doubted  if  they  would  listen,  in  every  form  of  nursing 
and  general  care  of  health  for  sick  or  well.  A  manikin  made  the 
lecture  on  "  Care  of  a  Baby  from  its  Birth  "  a  very  real  and  not-to-be- 
forgotten  matter ;  and  simple  bandaging,  changing  a  bed  without  dis- 
turbing a  patient,  and  many  other  essential  and  usually  unconsidered 
things,  each  became  an  object-lesson,  and  has  already  worked  per- 
jnanent  alteration  in  methods. 

Such  teaching  need  not  necessarily  be  limited  to  cities.     There  is 
not  a  village  in  the  United  States  where  interest  could  not  be  stimu- 


IN    THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  1 55 

lated  and  the  same  work  done  by  some  intelligent  woman,  aided  by 
the  village  physician,  who  in  nine  cases  out  often  will  be  an  educated 
man,  thankful  for  anything  that  will  make  it  possible  for  his  directions 
to  be  understood  and  followed  out.  Quacks  will  object,  for  their 
trade  rests  upon  ignorance ;  and  patent  medicine  makers  and  takers 
will  think  it  all  very  superfluous,  but  if  it  can  be  accomplished, 
there  will  be  fewer  sick  to  nurse,  and  better  nursing  when  they  are 
sick. 

There  are  popular  hand-books  which  cover  this  ground,  some  large 
and  some  small,  nothing  being  better  than  Miss  Nightingale's  "  Notes 
on  Nursing,"  and  so  simple  and  clear  that  it  is  impossible  to  err  if 
the  direction  is  followed  to  the  letter.  Larger  books  cover  the 
same  ground,  but  one  and  all  treat  the  subject  under  practically 
the  same  heads.  Pure  air,  proper  temperature,  cleanliness,  both  of 
person  and  of  surroundings ;  disinfectants  where  needed ;  suitable 
food  and  its  preparation,  are  all  vital  points,  whether  in  log-hut  or 
brown-stone  front,  and  it  is  with  these  that  we  have  to  do  in  the 
present  chapter,  each  very  sketchily  because  of  limited  space,  but 
each  in  the  order  given. 

And  first,  pure  air.  Every  authority  on  the  care  of  the  sick  sums 
up  this  question  in  a  rule  which  should  be  in  large  letters  before  the 
nurse's  if  not  the  patient's  eyes : 

"  Keep  the  Air  Breathed  as  Pure  as  the  External  Air, 
Without  Chilling  the  Patient." 

No  matter  what  the  sickness  is,  from  measles  or  mumps  up  to 
consumption,  this  is  one  of  the  chief  considerations.  It  is  not  enough 
to  open  a  door  into  another  room,  for  that  room  may  hold  all  sorts 
of  evil  smells,  from  the  fumes  of  dinner  to  gas,  or  the  mustiness  that 
comes  from  being  long  shut  up,  or  from  having  things  stored  in  it. 
An  open  fire-place,  above  all,  with  a  fire  burning  in  it,  is  an  almost 
perfect  ventilator;  but  few  houses  have  them,  and  air  must  generally 
come  from  the  windows.     Even  in  winter  there  is  no  danger.     People 


156  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

do  not  take  cold  in  bed.     If  chilly,  a  hot-water  bottle  to  the  feet  and 
an  extra  blanket  will  keep  the  patient  warm. 

To  make  a  room  cold  does  not  necessarily  prove  that  it  is  venti- 
lated. It  should  not,  save  in  special  cases,  where  the  doctor  must  be 
the  judge,  go  below  sixty  degrees,  and  it  ought  never  to  exceed 
seventy  unless  specially  ordered.  A  good  fire  and  an  open  window 
will  enable  one  to  secure  this,  and  in  summer,  when  fire  is  not 
required,  the  chill  of  early  morning  or  of  exhaustion  can  always  be 
prevented  or  checked  by  hot-water  bottles.  Do  not  dread  night  air, 
even  in  a  malarious  country.  To  breathe  even  that  is  better  than  to 
take  in  the  poison  thrown  off  by  the  lungs,  and  as  there  is  no  air  at 
night  but  night  air,  we  may  conclude  it  was  intended  to  be  used. 

Air  by  means  of  windows  and  not  through  doors  which  may 
admit  effluvia  of  every  sort.  Allow  nothing  in  the  room  which  can 
give  off  moisture.  If  damp  towels  or  clothing  are  dried  in  the  room, 
the  damp  passes  into  the  air  breathed  by  the  patient,  and  may  be  the 
cause  of  a  sudden  relapse.  And,  above  all,  let  no  excreta  remain 
there  a  moment  uncovered.  It  is  a  custom  to  push  such  vessels 
under  the  bed,  the  effluvia  from  them  saturating  the  under  side  of  the 
mattress.  If  you  do  not  believe  harm  can  be  done  in  this  way, 
examine  the  lid  of  such  an  utensil  after  it  has  been  a  short  time 
covered.  Drops  of  offensive  moisture  will  roll  from  it,  which  must 
go  to  whatever  is  above  them  where  no  lid  is  used.  Disinfectants 
and  fumigations  will  not  help  where  the  cause  of  the  foul  odor 
remains  in  the  room,  and  they  are  useless  in  any  case  unless  absolute 
cleanliness  in  both  room  and  house  is  the  rule.  Infectious  diseases 
are  far  less  likely  to  prove  so  under  the  present  system  of  open 
windows  and  light  bed-covering  than  in  the  old  days,  when  closed 
windows,  heavy  fires  and  piles  of  "  comfortables  "  made  death  prefer- 
able to  the  torture  they  caused. 

Cleanliness  is  next  in  order,  and  though  this  is  partially  included 
in  the  arrangements  for  pure  air,  some  special  treatment  of  walls  or 
sinks  and  drains  may  be  necessary.  Where  the  drainage  is  bad  and 
the  sickness  results  from  such  cause,  there  is  no  help  for  it  during  the 


IN    THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  1 57 

sickness  save  in  disinfectants,  much  scrubbing,  and  a  removal  of  the 
false  system  of  pipes  or  drains  at  the  first  practicable  instant. 

Carpets,  heavy  curtains  and  bedding  are  all  disease-holders,  and 
therefore  disease-breeders.  Dust  in  a  sick-room  is  more  irritating 
and  harmful  than  anywhere  else,  and  the  greatest  pains  must  be  taken 
to  remove  it.  Of  course  sweeping  is  not  to  be  thought  of  during 
severe  illness,  but  all  wood  work  and  furniture  can  be  wiped  with  a 
damp  cloth,  and  the  carpet  with  a  dry  one.  Papered  walls  are  very 
objectionable,  as  paper  also  accumulates  dirt  and  holds  the  germs  of 
disease.  If  it  were  possible  for  every  house  to  have  an  unpapered, 
uncarpeted,  airy  room  for  use  in  sickness,  convalescence  would  be 
speedier.  It  need  not  seem  bare  and  comfortless,  for  the  walls  could 
be  painted  and  thus  admit  of  wiping  off  daily  with  a  damp  cloth,  and 
the  floor  could  be  oiled  or  stained,  and  also  wiped  daily,  a  rug  being 
by  the  bedside  for  comfort.  Only  perfect  and  exquisite  cleanliness 
can  check  infectious  diseases,  and  it  is  the  chief  requisite  in  all. 
Those  who  have  gone  through  a  well-appointed  hospital,  gain  an 
idea  of  what  the  word  means,  which  even  the  best  and  most  care- 
fully-kept private  house  never  dreams  of  carrying  out,  the  chances  for 
recovery  in  a  good  hospital  being  for  this  very  reason  far  greater 
than  at  home. 

Next  to  general  comes  personal  cleanliness,  and  this  is  one  of  the 
most  difficult  points.  The  poor  mother,  who  very  likely  bathes  but 
once  a  week,  perhaps  not  as  often,  cannot  understand  why  a  daily 
sponging  is  necessary.  The  rich  one,  who  may  know  its  uses  in 
health,  is  in  terror  lest  sickness  be  increased  by  a  chill,  and  so  one  of 
the  surest  means  of  relief  remains  untried.  There  is  hardly  an 
illness  in  which  the  skin  is  not  more  or  less  disordered,  the  secretions 
sometimes  being  actually  poisonous,  and  generally  offensive.  It  is  a 
slow  poison,  but  a  very  sure  one,  and  clothing  left  day  after  day, 
saturated  with  perspiration,  or  skin  clogged  in  the  same  way,  mean 
very  often  death,  and  always  a  delayed  and  enfeebled  recovery.  The 
feeling  of  relief  and  comfort  after  a  sponging  may  be  regarded  as  a 
"  notion,"  when  it  is  really  a  proof  that  "  the  vital  powers  have  been 
relieved  by  removing  something  that  was  oppressing  them." 


158  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

The  great  danger  lies  in  exposing  too  large  a  surface  at  once,  and  thus 
causing  a  chill.  It  is  possible  to  give  a  thorough  cleansing,  yet  avoid 
this  altogether.  A  large  towel  or  extra  folded  sheet  should  be  under 
the  patient  to  prevent  the  bed  or  clothing  from  being  wet,  and  the 
sponge  can  be  passed  under  the  bed-covering,  a  bath  in  this  way  being 
easily  accomplished  after  a  little  practice.  Even  in  hot  weather  it 
will  be  wisest  not  to  leave  the  patients  uncovered,  but  to  draw  a  sheet 
over  them,  and  thus  prevent  any  possibility  of  a  chill.  Where 
special  forms  of  bathing  are  required,  the  doctor  should  give  his 
instructions,  but  in  all  ordinary  cases  a  sponging  with  tepid  water  and 
plenty  of  soap  will  answer  every  purpose.  In  dysentery  or  acute 
diarrhoea,  the  skin  is  hard  and  harsh,  and  the  greatest  relief  is 
experienced  in  using  soap  profusely,  castile  or  palm-oil  being  the  best 
varieties.  Where  there  is  great  weakness  and  exhaustion,  a  hot 
towel  should  be  used  in  drying  the  skin. 

Beds  and  bedding  are  an  important  question.  We  have  discarded 
in  great  degree  the  old-fashioned  feather  bed,  and  also  the  curtains 
and  valances  of  the  last  generation.  The  bed  in  sickness  should  be 
as  free  from  all  drapery,  or  anything  that  can  hold  contagion  or 
effluvias,  as  it  is  possible  to  have  it.  It  should  stand  out  from  the 
wall,  so  that  the  nurse  can  have  access  to  every  side.  It  should  be 
low,  to  save  as  much  exertion  as  possible,  if  the  patient  can  get  up 
and  down  at  all,  and,  if  practicable,  it  is  best  to  have  an  iron  one,  such 
as  is  used  in  hospitals  and  is  considered  essential  in  real  nursing. 
Such  a  bed  with  good  springs  and  covered  with  a  thin  hair  mattress 
is  more  comfortable  by  far  than  the  ordinary  one  with  an  under  mat- 
tress, or  perhaps  a  feather  bed,  which  can  never  be  quite  even  and 
free  from  a  sense  of  lumpiness.  The  best  authorities  agree  in  pro- 
nouncing a  hard  bed  to  be  unnecessary,  and  injurious  as  a  very  soft 
one.  A  wide-  one  is  supposed  to  afford  the  patient  most  refreshment, 
as  he  can  move  over  to  a  fresh  side ;  but  where  it  is  practicable,  a 
fresh  bed  is  a  better  method.  A  very  sick  patient  is  hardly  likely 
to  change  his  position  much,  and  where  he  is  able  to,  an  entire  one 
to  another  small  bed  gives  the  opportunity  of  thoroughly  airing  both 


IN    THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  1 59 

bedding  and  mattress.  In  airing  either  the  clothing  or  bedding,  if 
they  cannot  have  a  thorough  sunning,  dry  them  before  a  fire,  which 
not  only  dries  but  airs  them,  such  drying  being  more  important  for 
partly  soiled  things  than  for  clean.  A  bedside-table  is  a  necessity,  for 
no  waiter  or  dish  should  ever  be  put  on  the  bed  itself. 

Miss  Nightingale  writes  amusingly,  yet  with  much  feeling,  of  the 
difficulties  she  has  encountered  in  this  way :  "  When  I  see  a  patient 
in  a  room  nine  or  ten  feet  high  upon  a  bed  four  or  five  feet  high,  with 
his  head,  when  he  is  sitting  up  in  bed,  actually  within  two  or  three 
feet  of  the  ceiling,  I  ask  myself,  Is  this  expressly  planned  to  produce 
that  peculiarly  distressing  feeling  common  to  the  sick,  viz.,  as  if  the 
walls  and  ceiling  were  closing  in  upon  them,  and  they  becoming 
sandwiches  between  floor  and  ceiling,  which  imagination  is  not,  in- 
deed, here  so  far  from  the  truth  ?  If,  over  and  above  this,  the  win- 
dow stops  short  of  the  ceiling,  then  the  patient's  head  may  literally 
be  raised  above  the  stratum  of  fresh  air  even  when  the  window  is 
open.  Can  human  perversity  any  farther  go  in  unmaking  the  pro- 
cess of  restoration  which  God  has  made  ?  The  fact  is,  that  the  heads 
of  sleepers  or  of  sick  should  never  be  higher  than  the  throat  of  the 
chimney,  which  ensures  their  being  in  the  current  of  best  air.  And 
we  will  not  suppose  it  possible  that  you  have  closed  your  chimney 
with  a  chimney-board." 

Let  the  bed  covering  be  always  as  light  as  possible,  using  blankets, 
and  never  comfortables  where  it  can  be  avoided.  Weight  is  not 
warmth,  and  a  weak  patient  will  be  made  weaker  if  obliged  to  bear 
it.  The  pillows  should  not  be  piled  upon  one  another  like  bricks, 
but  arranged  so  that  the  lower  one  will  fit  in  to  the  hollow  of  the 
back  and  the  whole  form  an  easy  inclined  plane.  The  breathing  is 
more  or  less  difficult  in  all  sickness,  and  the  pillows  should  always 
be  so  placed  that  the  shoulders  can  fall  back  and  the  head  be  sup- 
ported but  not  thrown  forward. 

The  position  of  the  bed  is  also  of  importance.  The  well  person 
thinks  little  of  this,  for  the  bed-room  is  occupied  at  most  not  over 
seven  or  eight  hours  at  once.     But  the  sick  man  craves  light,  and 


i6o  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

there  are  few  cases  where  a  room  must  be  darkened,  abundant  sun- 
light being  a  powerful  means  of  recovery.  A  patient  instinctively 
turns  to  the  light,  and  is  never  likely  to  turn  to  the  wall  unless 
indifferent  and  approaching  death.  If  able  to  sit  up  at  all,  it  should 
be  in  the  sunshine,  except  in  hottest  weather,  and  a  shadowy 
north  room  is  the  worst  possible  one  for  any  invalid,  chronic  or 
temporary. 

Where  a  patient  is  too  ill  to  move  and  sheets  must  be  changed, 
the  best  method  is  that  practiced  in  hospitals  and  described  by  Dr. 
Burdett,  of  the  Sanitary  Institute  of  Great  Britain,  in  a  valuable  book 
on  "  Cottage  Hospitals :  " 

"  When  it  is  necessary  to  change  the  bed-clothes  of  a  bed-ridden 
or  nearly  helpless  patient,  the  following  will  be  an  easy  course  to 
pursue :  Having  the  clean  sheet  ready,  roll  up  the  dirty  under-sheet 
as  close  to  the  patient  as  possible,  then  half  roll  up  the  clean  sheet, 
and  place  the  unrolled  half  over  that  portion  of  the  bed  from  which 
the  dirty  linen  has  been  removed.  Then  lift  the  patient  on  to  this, 
and  having  removed  the  remainder  of  the  dirty  sheet  and  replaced 
it  by  unrolling  the  clean  one,  the  patient  will  be  made  comfortable 
very  rapidly,  and  with  the  least  possible  inconvenience.  If  the  patient 
be  too  weak  to  be  moved  bodily,  as  we  have  suggested,  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  change  the  under-sheet  without  lifting  the  patient  much,  pro- 
vided the  aid  of  an  assistant  is  secured.  With  this  method  it  is 
necessary  to  begin  at  the  head  of  the  bed ;  to  gradually  withdraw 
the  dirty  sheet  and  at  the  same  time  replace  it  with  the  clean  one, 
which  must  be  rolled  up  and  put  in  readiness  at  the  head  of  the  bed 
before  the  dirty  linen  is  removed." 

The  draw-sheet  is  very  essential  in  some  forms  of  sickness  or  after 
some  surgical  operations.  The  bed  can  be  protected  by  rubber,  but 
where  there  are  discharges  a  soft  old  sheet  should  be  folded  to  about 
two  feet  wide  and  rolled  up,  letting  a  free  end  be  under  the  patient. 
Then  as  it  becomes  wet,  it  can  be  drawn  along  on  the  opposite 
side  from  that  where  it  was  passed  under,  and  the  soiled  end  be 
rolled  tight  and  pinned.     In  this  way,  "  one  sheet  will  admit  of 


IN    THE   SICK-KOOM;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  l6l 

several  changes,  and  by  pinning  to  it  a  clean  one  a  succession  of 
draw-sheets  may  be  passed  under  a  patient,  with  a  minimum  of  dis- 
turbance." 

In  an  article  of  this  nature  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  give  more 
than  general  directions,  but  principles  of  nursing  are  fortunately  the 
same  for  all  forms  of  sickness.  And  among  the  rules  which  viust 
be  followed,  no  matter  what  the  case  or  age  or  condition,  quiet  ranks 
in  importance  with  pure  air  and  suitable  food.  The  thing  which 
passes  unnoticed  by  the  well  person,  or  is  regarded  as  the  merest 
trifle,  is  a  source  not  only  of  annoyance,  but  often  of  acute  suffering 
to  the  invalid.  The  child  may  not  be  able  to  define  this  like  the 
adult,  but  the  fact  remains  the  same.  Some  are  far  more  sensitive 
than  others,  but  then  one  or  two  rules  are  applicable  to  all. 

The  most  essential  of  these  is  one  often  ignored  altogether. 
"  Never  allow  a  patient  to  be  waked,  either  intentionally  or  acciden- 
tally." Even  in  health  one  who  is  roused  suddenly  from  a  first 
sleep  is  apt  to  remain  wakeful  and  restless  for  some  time.  Miss 
Nightingale  puts  the  case  more  simply  and  intelligently  than  any 
other  authority.  "  It  is  a  curious  but  quite  intelligible  fact,  that,  if 
a  patient  is  waked  after  a  few  hours'  instead  of  a  few  minutes'  sleep, 
he  is  much  more  likely  to  sleep  again.  Because  pain,  like  irritability 
of  brain,  perpetuates  and  intensifies  itself.  If  you  have  gained  a 
respite  of  either  in  sleep,  you  have  gained  more  than  the  mere  re- 
spite. Both  the  probability  of  recurrence  and  of  the  same  intensity 
will  be  diminished ;  whereas  both  will  be  terribly  increased  by  want 
of  sleep.  This  is  the  reason  why  sleep  is  all  important.  This  is  the 
reason  why  a  patient  waked  in  the  early  part  of  his  sleep  loses  not 
only  his  sleep,  but  his  power  to  sleep.  A  healthy  person  who  allows 
himself  to  sleep  during  the  day  will  lose  his  sleep  at  night.  But  it 
is  exactly  the  reverse  with  the  sick  generally ;  the  more  they  sleep, 
the  better  will  they  be  able  to  sleep." 

Try  and  have  everything  in  order  for  the  night,  early  in  the  even- 
ing, so  that  there  will  be  no  disturbance  at  the  time  the  patient  would 

naturally  sleep.     And  in  the  matter  of  noise  in  general,  remember 
II 


1 62  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

that  a  loud  noise  is  often  less  harmful  than  an  unnecessary  one.  A 
flapping  window-shade,  a  creaking  door,  a  stiff  and  rustling  dress  or 
squeaking  shoes  are  unbearable  evils,  and  a  bustling,  fidgety  manner 
is  equally  so.  "  Study  to  be  quiet,"  is  the  injunction  here  as  well  as 
in  other  forms  of  active  life,  and  a  calm  manner,  an  even  tone  and 
gentle  yet  decisive  movements  are  of  incalculable  benefit  to  a  patient. 
Do  not  feel  that  if  he  used  a  little  more  self-control  these  things 
would  not  be  noticed.  They  are  half  unconscious  irritants  when  one 
is  well,  but  in  sickness,  whether  of  child  or  adult,  there  is  mental  as 
well  as  physical  pain.  The  nervous  system  is  unhinged  and  mor- 
bidly susceptible,  and  "  the  sick  person  who  behaves  decently  well 
exercises  more  self-control  every  moment  of  his  day  than  you  will 
ever  know  till  you  are  sick  yourself.  Almost  every  step  that  crosses 
the  room  is  painful  to  him ;  almost  every  thought  that  crosses  his 
brain  is  painful  to  him ;  and  if  he  can  speak  without  being  savage, 
and  look  without  being  unpleasant,  he  is  exercising  self-control." 

Above  all  things,  do  not  whisper  in  a  sick-room.  The  ear  is  in- 
voluntarily strained  to  listen,  and  in  the  case  of  fever,  the  patient  will 
not  only  be  worse,  but  often  become  delirious  from  the  irritation. 
Never  discuss  symptoms  or  treatment  before  him,  and  never  allow 
visitors  or  one  of  the  family  to  describe  similar  cases.  Nor  is  it 
well  to  continually  ask,  "  How  are  you  feeling  now  ?  "  Watch  care- 
fully and  learn  how  to  judge  for  yourself  The  faculty  of  observa- 
tion is  seldom  cultivated  even  among  the  best  educated.  A  trained 
nurse  has  this  advantage  over  the  untrained,  that  she  has  been 
taught  to  watch  every  variation  in  color  or  expression,  and  can  tell 
on  the  instant  what  each  indicates,  while,  the  ordinary  one  notices 
nothing,  and  is  amazed  at  some  sudden  collapse. 

Remember,  also,  that  the  horrible  monotony  of  the  sick-room  is 
a  constant  irritation.  The  well  person,  no  matter  what  their  troubles 
and  anxieties  may  be,  has  a  thousand  resources  which  unconsciously 
lighten  them,  but  for  the  sick  there  is  no  escape.  Plan  to  give  them 
a  little  occupation  if  they  can  bear  it,  or  at  least  move  the  bed  where 
they  can  look  out  of  the  window.     A  picture  on  the  wall,  changed 


IN    THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  1 63 

now  and  then,  a  glass  of  fresh  flowers,  or  a  growing  plant,  afford  a 
pleasure  beyond  anything  known  in  health.  A  bare  wall  in  fever 
cases  seems  often  to  make  all  sorts  of  faces,  but  flowers  never  do. 
It  is  an  old-fashioned  notion  that  they  are  unhealthy,  and  the  nurse 
who  will  leave  her  patient  stewing  and  stifling  in  an  over-heated  and 
foul  atmosphere  will  order  a  fresh  rose  out  of  the  room  on  the  in- 
stant. "  They  give  off  carbonic  acid."  On  the  contrary,  in  such  a 
room  they  absorb  it,  and  die  a  speedy  death  because  they  have.  The 
beautiful  custom,  dating  back  only  a  few  years,  of  the  "  flower  mis- 
sions "  in  large  cities  is  beneficent  in  more  senses  than  one,  and  act- 
ually acts  as  a  healing  force. 

Remember,  also,  that  a  gloomy  and  troubled  face  is  a  weight  you 
have  no  right  to  lay  on  any  one,  sick  or  well.  A  laugh  will  often 
alter  the  course  of  an  illness  for  the  better,  and  if  there  is  incurable 
disease  gloominess  will  only  add  to  the  inevitable  sorrow.  Aim  to 
give  as  much  variety  as  possible.  Tell  every  pleasant  thing  you 
hear,  and  keep  the  sufferers'  thoughts  as  much  off  of  themselves 
as  possible.  In  a  long  chronic  case,  a  pet  bird  or  other  animal  will 
often  be  the  greatest  comfort,  and  babies  and  sick  people  are  ex- 
cellent society  for  one  another.  "  If  you  think  the  'air  of  the  sick- 
room '  bad  for  the  baby,  why  it  is  bad  for  the  invalid  too,  and,  there- 
fore, you  will  of  course  correct  it  for  both.  It  freshens  up  a  sick 
person's  whole  mental  atmosphere  to  see  '  the  baby.'  And  a  very 
young  child,  if  unspoiled,  will  generally  adapt  itself  wonderfully  to 
the  ways  of  the  sick  person,  if  the  time  they  spend  together  is  not 
too  long." 

Reading  aloud  is  a  great  resource,  but  in  fevers  will  often  excite 
and  irritate,  and  no  fixed  rules  for  occupation  can  be  given,  com- 
mon sense  being  the  only  guide  here  as  elsewhere,  it  being  only 
necessary  to  remember  that  some  occupation  is  a  means  of  cure  for 
all  but  the  dangerously  ill. 

We  come  now  to  Food,  a  question  next  in  importance  to  that  of 
air,  which  is  simply  a  form  of  food  demanded  by  the  lungs.  More 
and  more  as  time  has  shown  the  errors  of  the  past,  physicians  have 


164  THE  hearthstone;   ok,  life  at  home. 

come  to  rely  on  suitable  food  as  their  strongest  and  most  efficient 
ally.  A  change  in  food  will  often  cure  a  long  established  trouble, 
and  certain  diseases  are  now  treated  by  the  food-cure — diabetes,  for 
instance,  having  its  own  peculiar  regimen.  Where  this  question  is 
understood,  drugs  may  be  dispensed  with ;  and  as  constant  investiga- 
tion'and  experiment  are  going  on,  we  are  able  now  to  plan  the  diet 
best  suited  to  the  disease.  Among  the  many  authorities  on  diet- 
etics none  are  better  than  "  Pavy  on  Food  and  Dietetics,"  and 
Chambers' "  Manual  of  Diet."  Both  are  English  physicians  of  highest 
scientific  reputation,  and  accepted  there  and  here  as  unquestioned 
authorities.  Dr.  Edward  Smith's  book  on  foods  is  also  useful,  and 
there  are  many  smaller  treatises ;  but  if  one  studies  at  all  it  should 
always  be  the  best,  and  if  the  physician  is  intelligent  be  will  always 
be  glad  to  explain  any  dubious  points. 

The  diet  will  probably  be  ordered  by  him  with  as  much  or  more 
care  than  the  medicines,  and  the  nurse's  business  will  be,  first,  to  see 
that  his  directions  are  implicitly  obeyed,  and,  second,  that  the  food 
is  properly  cooked.  Good  cooking  is  an  essential  to  health.  It  is 
even  more  an  essential  to  recovery  from  sickness,  but  it  is  the  rarest 
of  accomplishments.  Burned  toast,  scorched  gruels,  flavorless  beef- 
tea  or  broth,  with  a  coat  of  floating  fat,  are  offered  to  the  uncertain 
or  entirely  wanting  appetite,  which  rejects  them  involuntarily. 
Nothing  seems  more  difficult  than  the  perfect  preparation  of  simple 
things.  How  many  persons  are  capable  of  sending  up  a  perfect 
slice  of  toast,  crisp,  golden  brown,  hot?  How  many,  a  cup  of  tea, 
fragrant,  steaming  and  alluring  ?  The  gruel  is  lumpy ;  the  chop 
scorched  outside  and  raw  within ;  the  egg  overdone  or  underdone. 
To  make  this  part  of  nursing  easier,  a  set  of  receipts,  endorsed  by  the 
best  physicians  and  long  in  use  by  the  writer,  are  given  at  the  end 
of  this  article.  Every  one  has  been  tested  over  and  over,  and  if 
directions  are  followed  to  the  letter,  there  cannot  be  failure. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  many  patients  are  actually  starved  in  the 
midst  of  plenty.  A  weak  patient  who  has  had  a  feverish  night  has  a 
dry  mouth,  and  the  thought  of  any  solid  food  before  ten  or  eleven 


IN   THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  165 

A.  M.  is  disgusting.  The  nurse,  therefore,  does  not  urge  it,  and  ex- 
haustion comes  on,  when  a  spoonful  of  beef-tea,  of  egg-nogg,  or 
some  form  of  good  gruel,  would  have  kept  up  the  strength.  To  wa.sh 
out  the  mouth  in  any  case  of  sickness,  but  especially  in  fevers,  is  a 
great  comfort,  and  the  physician  will  give  a  prescription  for  some 
liquors  of  permanganate  of  potash,  which  in  water  will  give  the 
mouth  a  fresh,  cool  feeling,  even  in  high  fever. 

A  patient  can  swallow  liquid  when  solid  foods  are  impossible,  but 
no  matter  in  what  form,  the  hours  for  taking  it  should  be  punctually 
attended  to.  A  delay  of  even  five  minutes  will  often  destroy  the 
appetite  of  a  nervous  patient,  and  in  severe  cases  delay  may  mean 
actual  death.  "  Let  the  food  come  at  the  right  time,  and  be  taken 
away,  eaten  or  uneaten,  at  the  right  time,  but  never  let  a  patient 
have  something  always  standing  by  him,  if  you  don't  v»^ish  to  dis- 
gust him  with  everything." 

Find  out  if  you  can  at  what  hours  a  patient  feels  most  inclined  to 
eat.  Often  when  there  seems  no  way  of  tempting  appetite,  and  meals 
go  away  untasted,  it  may  be  possible  by  a  change  in  hours  to  succeed 
better.  Often,  too,  the  being  watched  anxiously  will  destroy  appe- 
tite. Leave  the  patient  alone  as  much  as  possible  while  eating,  and 
if  there  is  failure  at  one  meal,  make  it  up  by  some  addition  to  the 
next.  Leave  very  little  to  his  judgment,  and  try  also  to  estimate 
amounts  properly  and  to  learn  how  to  tell  what  has  been  eaten.  It  is 
very  easy  to  find  out  what  is  meant  by  an  ounce  of  meat  or  drink. 
Often  a  patient  will  turn  over  food  and  give  the  impression  of  having 
eaten  it,  and  a  careless  observer  will  take  away  the  tray,  without 
noticing  that  next  to  nothing  is  missing,  yet  the  doctor  will  be  told 
that  the  meals  have  been  taken  about  as  usual. 

^  Remember  also  that  research  has  proved  many  things  to  be  less 
nourishing  than  you  may  have  been  brought  up  to  believe.  Beef- 
tea  is  an  essential  in  sickness,  but  it  is  not  nourishment.  It  is  a 
powerful  stimulant,  and  has  what  is  called  "a  reparative  quality," 
which  makes  it  of  greatest  value.  Gelatine  was  once  believed  to  be 
condensed  nourishment,  but  careful  experiment  showed  it  to  be  of 


i66  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

no  value  at  all.  Eggs  are  desirable,  but  people  of  nervous  or  bilious 
temperament  are  often  unable  to  take  them,  except  whipped  up  in 
wine. 

A  smoothly  baked  custard  is  considered  very  digestible.  On  the 
contrary  the  baking  of  eggs  in  either  custard  or  pudding  has  ren- 
dered them  almost  hopelessly  indigestible.  Arrow-root,  especially 
among  English  nurses,  is  a  great  dependence,  but  it  is  really  only 
starch  and  water,  flour  being  far  better,  as  well  as  less  likely  to  fer- 
ment. Oatmeal,  crushed  wheat,  and  corn-meal  are  all  preferable  to 
sago,  tapioca,  or  arrow-root,  corn-meal  being  especially  good  for 
weak  and  chilly  invalids  because  of  its  heating  qualities.  Milk,  too, 
is  one  of  the  best  of  foods,  and  cream  as  efficient  a  healer  of  delicate 
lungs  as  cod-liver  oil.  The  least  change  in  milk  renders  it  unwhole- 
some, and  the  utmost  care  must  be  used  in  keeping  it.  Buttermilk 
is  very  useful  in  fevers,  and  often  where  used  plentifully  is  not  only 
food,  but  a  cooling  medicine. 

■  Do  not  disregard  what  may  seem  senseless  craving  on  the  part  of 
the  patient  for  some  article  of  food  which  even  the  well  are  supposed 
to  find  it  hard  to  digest.  A  patient  with  dysentery  or  chronic  diar- 
rhoea has  often  been  known  to  beg  for  fat  ham  or  bacon,  suet  pud- 
ding, cheese,  fruit,  or  pickles,  and  preposterous  as  it  sounds,  these 
articles  represented  two  classes  of  food  demanded  by  the  Avasted 
tissues — fat  and  vegetable  acids.  Pavy  gives  a  rule  for  preparing 
suet  for  such  cases,  and  an  intelligent  nurse  or  physician  will  always 
consider  such  requests  carefully  before  either  denying  or  granting 
them. 

There  is  great  difference  in  the  amounts  which  different  patients 
can  digest,  and  this  is  apt  to  be  the  source  of  one  error  in  feeding 
the  sick.  A  case  of  typhoid,  for  instance,  may  be  ordered  four  ounces 
of  brandy  a  day,  and  the  nurse  proceeds  to  dilute  it  till  there  are  four 
pints  to  be  swallowed.  Tea,  beef-tea,  gruel,  and  other  foods  are 
treated  in  the  same  way,  with  the  idea  that  the  nourishment  is  just 
so  much  increased.  Nothing  could  well  be  more  mistaken.  It  may 
be  necessary  to  reduce  the  strength  of  brandy  for  easier  swallowing, 


IN   THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  167 

but  in  cases  where  taking  food  is  nearly  impossible,  this  should  be 
but  very  slightly. 

There  are  cases  where  nutritive  enema  must  be  given,  and  the 
form  recommended  by  Pavy  is  chosen  here. 

Remember  also  that  the  matter  of  appearance  is  of  far  more  im- 
portance  to  a  sick  than  a  well  person,  and  even  if  the  meal  be  only 
toast  and  tea,  follow  instructions  for  making  each,  and  serve  them  on 
the  freshest  of  napkins  and  in  dainty  china.  A  tete-a-tete  service  is 
very  nice  for  use  in  a  sick-room,  and  in  any  case  a  very  small  tea- 
pot can  be  had,  that  the  tea  may  always  be  made  fresh.  Prepare 
only  a  small  amount  of  anything,  and  never  discuss  it  beforehand.  A 
surprise  will  often  rouse  a  flagging  appetite.  Be  ready,  too,  to  have 
your  best  attempts  rejected,  and  take  comfort  in  the  fact  that  tlio 
article  disliked  one  day  may  be  just  what  is  wanted  the  next. 

Finally,  remember  that  there  are  duties  to  one's  self  as  well  as  the 

patient.     Try  to  secure  at  least  a  few  minutes  daily  in  the  open  air. 

Rest  as  regularly  as  possible,  and  keep  a  quiet  mind.     Patience  is 

the  first  necessity  above  all  with  children,  who  in  convalescence  are 

apt  to  be  exasperatingly  fretful.     Every  power  of  self-control  and 

repression  is  called   into  play  by  sickness,  and  in  this  as  in  many 

other  emergencies  of  life,  the  same  word  applies — "and  having  done 

all,  to  standy 

FOOD  FOR  THE  SICK. 

It  seems  v/ell,  before  giving  formal  rules  of  preparation,  to  place 
here  the  different  tables  of  diet  used  in  the  best  hospitals ;  not  that 
they  are  to  be  followed  literally,  but  to  be  examined  carefully  for 
the  purpose  of  seeing  what  proportion  of  solid  and  liquid  is  con- 
sidered best,  and  what  amounts  are  regarded  as  necessary  in  "  full " 
and  "  low  "  diet.  The  appetite  of  a  convalescent  is  usually  greater 
than  when  in  health,  and  these  tables  have  been  made  after  long  con- 
sultation among  physicians  who  have  given  a  lifetime  to  the  subject, 
and  whose  object  is  the  very  speediest  possible  restoration  to  health. 
Having  once  discovered  what  amount  makes  a  solid  and  a  liquid 
ounce,  it  will  be  easy  to  judge  as  to  quantities  specified. 


i68  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

In  severe  sickness  a  glass  tube  is  very  useful  for  feeding  gruels 
and  drinks,  and  several  can  be  kept  on  hand  in  the  medicine  closet, 
which  should  be  in  every  house,  for  the  sake  of  having  in  one  spot 
all  the  simple  remedies  necessary  in  ordinary  life.  Small,  white 
china  boats  with  spouts  are  as  useful  as  the  tubes,  but  let  them  be 
used  only  for  food,  as  if  medicine  is  given  in  them  the  patient  is  likely 
to  associate  it  with  the  food,  and  thus  lose  relish  and  appetite.  A 
wooden  tray  with  legs  six  or  seven  inches  high,  to  stand  on  the  bed, 
is  convenient  for  serving  meals,  and  if  there  is  no  bed-rest  for  use 
when  the  patient  can  sit  up,  a  chair  turned  with  the  back  down  and 
a  pillow  against  it  is  a  very  good  substitute. 

Fever  or  Low  Diet. 

Bread         --------  6  oz. 

Milk     --------  2  pints. 

Beef-tea  or  mutton  broth  (i  lb.  meat  to  pint)        -  i  pint. 

Arrowroot  ______  2  oz. 


Tea,  ^  oz. 
Sugar,  I  oz. 


For  a  pint  of  tea. 


Middle  or  Half  Diet. 
Bread  -_____-  8oz. 

Butter     -  -         -         -         -         -         -  -loz. 

Fish    --------  6oz. 

Or,  hashed  mutton  or  beef        -         -         -  -     3  oz. 

Potatoes,  mashed  _____  8  oz. 

Milk i^  pint 

Rice,  sago  or  arrowroot        »         _         _         _  2  oz. 

Tea,  ^  oz.    1 

f,  }  For  I  pint  of  tea. 

bugar,  I  oz.  j 

Full  or  Ordinary  Diet. 

Bread  -         -         -         -         -         -         -  16  to  20  oz. 

Meat,  cooked  without  bone,     -         -         -  7  oz. 

Potatoes      -         -         -         -         -        -         -  12  oz. 


IN   THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  169 

Butter    -------  loz. 

Cheese  or  gruel  -         -         -         -         -  -     2  oz. 

Milk 1^  pint. 

Tea     -         -         -         -         -         -         -  -i^oz. 

Sugar I  oz. 

Of  course,  these  are  merely  guides.  Fresh  fruit  can  often  be 
used  to  great  advantage,  and  stewed  prunes  and  other  dried  fruit  may- 
take  the  place  of  fish  in  winter.  Lemons  are  of  greatest  value, 
and  lemonade,  freely  drunk,  is  often  prescribed  for  certain  ailments, 
while  the  juice  of  half  a  lemon,  morning  and  evening,  with  very  little 
or  no  sugar,  is  an  almost  infallible  cure  for  constipation. 

Beef  Essence. — Cut  a  pound  of  perfectly  lean  beef  into  small  bits. 
Do  not  allow  any  particle  of  fat  to  remain.  Put  in  a  wide-mouthed 
bottle,  or  a  glass  can,  cork  or  cover  tightly,  and  set  in  a  kettle  of 
cold  water.  Boil  for  three  hours,  and  pour  ofl"the  juice  which  is  now 
completely  extracted  from  the  meat.  There  will  be  about  a  small 
cupful.  Season  with  a  saltspoonful  of  salt,  unless  directed  other- 
wise. This  is  given  in  extreme  weakness,  feeding  a  teaspoonful  or 
more  at  a  time,  as  ordered. 

Beef-tea,  as  ordered  by  Pavy. — "  Mince  finely  one  pound  of  lean 
beef,  and  pour  upon  it,  in  a  preserve  jar  or  other  suitable  vessel,  one 
pint  of  cold  water.  Stir,  and  allow  the  two  to  stand  for  about  an 
hour,  that  the  goodness  of  the  meat  may  be  dissolved  out.  Next 
stand  the  jar  in  a  saucepan  of  cold  water,  and  allow  it  to  gently  boil 
for  an  hour.  Remove  the  jar  and  pour  its  contents  on  to  a  strainer. 
The  beef-tea  which  runs  through  contains  a  quantity  of  fine  sediment, 
which  is  to  be  drunk  with  the  liquid,  after  being  flavored  with  salt  at 
discretion.  The  jar  in  which  the  beef-tea  is  made  may  be  introduced 
into  an  ordinary  oven  for  an  hour  instead  of  being  surrounded  by 
the  water  in  the  saucepan." 

Beef-tea  thus  prepared  represents  a  highly  restorative  liquid,  with 
an  agreeable,  rich,  meaty  flavor.  It  is  a  common  practice  among 
cooks  to  make  it  by  putting  it  into  a  saucepan  and  subjecting  it  to 


I/O  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

prolonged  boiling  or  simmering  over  a  fire,  but  the  product  then 
yielded  constitutes  in  reality  a  soup  or  broth  instead  of  a  tea.  The 
prolonged  boiling  leads  to  the  extraction  of  gelatine,  and  the  liquid 
gelatinizes  on  cooling  (which  is  not  the  case  when  prepared  as  above), 
but  at  the  same  time  the  albuminous  matter  becomes  condensed 
and  agglomerated  in  such  a  manner  as  to  form  part  of  the  solid 
rejected  residue,  and  the  liquid  loses  in  flavor  and  in  invigorating 
power. 

Mrs.  Garfield's  Beef-tea. — This  form  has  long  been  known  to 
physicians  as  "  Liebig's  beef-tea,"  and  is  used  in  extreme  weakness, 
but  is  not  as  palatable  as  either  of  the  other  forms.  Take  half  a 
pound  of  lean  beef  and  mince  it  finely.  Pour  on  it,  in  a  glass  or 
earthen  vessel,  three-quarters  of  a  pint  of  cold  water,  to  which  has 
been  added  four  drops  of  muriatic  acid  and  about  half  a  saltspoonful 
of  salt.  Stir  well  together  and  allow  it  to  stand  one  hour.  Strain 
through  a  hair-sieve  and  rinse  the  residue  with  a  quarter  of  a  pint  of 
water.  The  liquid  thus  obtained  contains  the  juice  of  the  meat,  with 
the  albumen  in  an  uncoagulated  state,  and  syntonin  or  muscle-fibre 
which  has  been  dissolved  by  the  agency  of  the  acid.  It  is  to  be 
taken  cold,  or,  if  warmed,  must  not  be  heated  beyond  120°  Fahr. 
No  cooking  is  here  employed,  and,  although  much  richer  in  nutritive 
material  and  more  invigorating  than  ordinary  beef-tea,  the  raw-meat 
color,  smell  and  taste  that  it  possesses  sometimes  cause  it  to  be 
objected  to. 

Savory  Beef-tea. — Two  pounds  of  lean  beef  finely  chopped  ;  one 
small  onion  with  two  cloves  stuck  in  it;  half  a  small  carrot,  cut  fine; 
a  saltspoonful  of  celery  seed,  and  a  sprig  of  parsley  or  thyme ;  one 
teaspoonful  of  salt ;  half  a  teacupful  of  good  tomato  catsup,  or  a  tea- 
cupful  of  canned  tomato.  Prepare  precisely  as  in  first  form  for  beef- 
tea  ;  strain,  and  use  with  toast  or  crackers. 

Milk  and  Suet-Pavy. — Boil  one  ounce  of  finely  chopped  suet 
with  a  quarter  of  a  pint  of  water  for  ten  minutes,  and  press  through 
linen  or  thin  flannel.  Then  add  one  drachm  of  broken  cinnamon, 
one  ounce  of  sugar,  and  three-quarters  of  a  pint  of  milk.     Boil  again 


IN    THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  i;ri 

for  ten  minutes  and  strain.  A  wineglassful  to  a  quarter  of  a  pint 
forms  the  quantity  to  be  taken  at  a  time.  It  constitutes  a  highly 
nutritive  and  fattening  article,  but  must  not  be  given  in  excess,  as  it 
may  occasion  diarrhoea. 

Chicken  Broth. — One  chicken  weighing  one  and  a  half  or  two 
pounds.  Cut  the  chicken  in  pieces  and  the  meat  from  the  bones  and 
put  all  in  three  pints  of  cold  water.  Skim  thoroughly  when  it 
comes  to  a  boil ;  add  a  teaspoonful  of  salt  and  simmer  for  three 
hours.  Strain  and  serve.  A  tablespoonful  of  soaked  rice  or  tapioca 
may  be  added  after  the  broth  is  strained,  in  which  case  it  must  be 
returned  to  the  fire  and  boiled  half  an  hour. 

Chicken  Jelly. — Boil  chicken  as  for  broth,  but  reduce  the  liquid 
to  a  little  less  than  a  pint.  Strain  through  a  fine  strainer  into  a  cup 
or  mould  and  turn  out  when  cold. 

Chicken  Panada. — Take  the  breast  of  the  chicken  boiled  as  above, 
cut  in  bits  and  pound  smooth  in  a  mortar.  Take  a  teacupful  of 
bread  crumbs  ;  soak  them  soft  in  warm  milk,  or,  if  liked  better,  in  a 
little  of  the  hot  broth.  Mix  them  with  the  chicken ;  add  a  saltspoon- 
ful  of  salt,  and,  if  allowed,  a  pinch  of  mace,  and  serve  in  a  cup  with 
a  spoon. 

Mutton  Broth. — Make  like  chicken  broth,  skimming  off  every 
particle  of  fat. 

Beef,  Tapioca,  and  Egg  Broth. — One  pound  of  lean  beef,  pre- 
pared as  for  beef-tea,  and  soaked  one  hour  in  a  quart  of  cold  water. 
Boil  slowly  for  two  hours,  and  then  strain  it.  Add  a  half  teaspoon- 
ful of  salt,  and  half  a  cupful  of  tapioca,  which  has  been  washed  and 
soaked  an  hour  in  warm  water.  Boil  slowly  half  an  hour.  Serve  in 
a  shallow  bowl  in  which  a  poached  egg  is  put  at  the  last,  or  stir  a 
beaten  egg  into  one  cup  of  the  boiling  soup  and  serve  at  once  with 
wafers  or  crackers. 

Oatmeal  Gruel. — Have  ready  in  a  double  boiler  one  quart  of 
boiling  water  with  a  teaspoonful  of  salt,  and  sprinkle  in  two  table- 
spoonfuls  of  fine  oatmeal.  Boil  an  hour;  then  strain  and  serve  with 
milk  or  cream  and  sugar,  if  ordered.  Farina  gruel  is  made  in  the 
same  way. 


iy2  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Indian  or  Corn-meal  Gruel. — One  quart  of  boiling  water;  one 
teaspoonful  of  salt.  Mix  three  tablespoonfuls  of  corn-meal  with  a 
little  cold  water,  and  stir  in  slowly.  Boil  one  hour;  strain  and 
serve,  a  cupful  at  once. 

Milk  Porridge. — One  quart  of  boiling  milk;  two  tablespoonfuls 
of  flour  mixed  smooth  in  a  little  cold  milk,  and  half  a  teaspoonful  of 
salt.  Stir  into  the  milk  and  boil  half  an  hour,  strain  and  serve.  If 
allowed,  a  handful  of  raisins  and  a  little  grated  nutmeg  may  be 
boiled  with  it. 

Wine  Whey. — Boil  one  cupful  of  new  milk,  and  add  half  a  wine- 
glass of  good  Sherry  or  Madeira  wine.  Boil  one  minute,  strain,  and 
use  with  or  without  sugar  as  liked. 

Egg-Nogg. — One  egg;  one  tablespoonful  of  sugar;  halfacupof 
milk ;  one  tablespoonful  of  wine.  Beat  the  sugar  and  yolk  together 
to  a  cream;  add  the  wine  and  then  the  milk.  Beat  the  white  to  a 
stiff  froth  and  stir  in  lightly.  Omit  the  milk  where  more  condensed 
nourishment  is  required. 

Rice  Water  for  Drink. — One  quart  of  boiling  water;  a  pinch 
of  salt;  one  tablespoonful  of  rice  or  rice  flour.  Boil  half  an  hour 
and  strain.     Use  cold  or  hot,  as  liked. 

Arrow-Root,  or  Rice  Jelly. — Two  heaping  teaspoonfuls  of  either 
arrow-root  or  rice  flour;  a  pinch  of  salt;  a  heaping  tablespoonful  of 
sugar;  one  cup  of  boiling  water.  Mi.x  the  flour  smooth  in  a  little 
cold  water,  and  add  to  the  boiling  water.  Boil  half  an  hour,  and 
pour  into  cups  or  a  small  mould.  For  a  patient  with  summer-com- 
plaint, a  small  stick  of  cinnamon  may  be  boiled  in  it.  For  a  fever 
patient  add  the  juice  of  half  a  lemon. 

Toast- Water. — Toast  two  slices  of  white  bread  very  brown,  but 
do  not  scorch.  Put  in  a  pitcher,  and,  while  hot,  pour  on  one  quart 
of  cold  water.     Let  it  stand  half  an  hour  and  it  is  ready  for  use. 

Crust  Coffee. — Two  thick  slices  of  Graham  or  Boston  brown 
bread,  toasted  as  brown  as  possible.  Pour  on  one  pint  of  boiling 
water  and  steep  ten  minutes.  Serve  with  milk  and  sugar  like  coffee. 
Or,  dry  brown  crusts  in  the  oven  and  use  in  the  same  way. 


IN    THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  173 

Beef  Juice. — Broil  a  thick  piece  of  beefsteak  three  minutes. 
Squeeze  all  the  juice  with  a  lemon-squeezer  into  a  cup,  salt  lightly, 
and  give  like  beef-tea. 

Jelly  and  Ice. — Break  ice  in  bits  no  bigger  than  a  pea.  A  large 
pin  will  break  off  bits  from  a  lump  very  easily.  To  a  tablespoonful, 
add  one  of  wine  jelly,  broken  up.     It  is  very  refreshing  in  fevers. 

Panada. — Lay  in  a  bowl  two  Boston  or  Graham  crackers,  split; 
sprinkle  on  a  pinch  of  salt,  and  cover  with  boiling  water.  Set  the 
bowl  in  a  sauce-pan  of  boiling  water,  and  let  it  stand  half  an  hour 
or  till  the  crackers  look  clear.  Slide  into  a  hot  saucer  without  break- 
ing, and  eat  with  cream  and  sugar.  As  they  are  only  good  hot,  do 
just  enough  for  the  patient's  appetite  at  one  time. 

Milk  Toast. — Toast  one  or  two  slices  of  bread  a  bright  brov;n; 
dip  quickly  in  a  little  salted,  boiling  water  and  spread  on  a  little  but- 
ter. Boil  a  teacupful  of  milk;  thicken  with  an  even  teaspoonful  of 
flour  mixed  smooth  in  a  little  cold  water,  with  a  pinch  of  salt;  lay 
the  toast  in  a  small,  hot,  deep  plate  and  pour  over  the  milk.  Cream 
toast  is  made  in  the  same  way. 

Beef  Sandwich. — Two  or  three  tablespoonfuls  of  raw,  very  ten- 
der beef,  scraped  fine  and  spread  between  two  slices  of  slightly  but- 
tered bread.     Sprinkle  on  pepper  and  salt. 

Prepared  Flour. — Tie  a  pint  of  flour  tightly  in  a  cloth  and  boil 
four  hours.  Scrape  off  the  outer  crust,  and  the  inside  will  be  found 
to  be  a  dry  ball.  Grate  this  as  required,  allowing  one  tablespoonful 
wet  in  cold  milk,  to  a  pint  of  boiling  milk,  and  boiling  till  smooth. 
Add  a  saltspoonful  of  salt.  This  is  excellent  for  summer-complaint, 
whether  in  adults  or  children.  The  beaten  white  of  an  egg  can  also 
be  stirred  in  if  ordered.  If  this  porridge  is  used  from  the  beginning 
of  the  complaint,  little  or  no  medicine  will  be  required. 

Rice  Coffee. — Parch  rice  to  a  deep  brown  and  grind.  Allow  half 
a  cup  to  a  quart  of  boiling  water,  and  boil  fifteen  minutes.  Strain 
and  drink  plain  or  with  milk  and  sugar. 

Herb  Tea. — For  the  dried  herbs  allow  one  teaspoonful  to  a  cup 
of  boiling  water.  Pour  the  water  on  them,  cover,  and  steep  ten  min- 
utes or  so. 


174  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Beefsteak  or  Chops. — With  beefsteak,  cut  a  small  thick  piece 
of  good  shape;  broil  carefully,  turning  every  minute,  eight  minutes 
for  rare,  twelve  for  well  done.  Serve  on  a  hot  plate,  salting  a  little, 
but  using  no  butter  unless  allowed  by  the  physician. 

Chops  should  be  neatly  trimmed  and  cooked  in  the  same  way. 
A  nice  way  of  serving  a  chop  is  to  broil  and  cut  in  small  bits.  Have 
ready  a  baked  potato.  Cut  a  slice  from  the  top;  take  out  the  inside 
and  season  as  for  eating  ;  add  the  chop  and  return  all  to  the  skin, 
covering  it  and  serving  hot  as  possible.  When  appetite  has  returned, 
poached  eggs  on  toast,  or  a  little  salt  cod  with  cream,  will  be 
relished. 

Tapioca  Jelly. — Two  tablespoonfuls  of  tapioca  soaked  over  night 
in  one  cup  of  cold  water.  In  the  morning  add  a  second  cup  of  cold 
water  and  boil  till  very  clear.  Add  quarter  of  a  cup  of  sugar;  two 
teaspoonfuls  of  brandy  or  four  of  wine;  or  the  thin  rind  and  juice 
of  a  lemon  may  be  used  instead.  Pour  into  small  moulds  wet  with 
cold  water  and  turn  out  when  firm. 

Apple  Water. — Two  roasted  sour  apples  or  one  pint  of  washed 
dried  apples.  Pour  on  one  quart  of  boiling  water;  cover  and  let  it 
stand  half  an  hour,  when  it  is  ready  for  use. 

Tea. — Never  use  a  tin  tea-pot  if  an  earthen  one  is  obtainable. 
An  even  teaspoonful  of  dry  tea  is  the  usual  allowance  for  a  person. 
Scald  the  tea-pot  with  a  little  boiling  water  and  pour  it  off.  Put  in 
the  tea,  and  pour  on  not  over  a  cup  of  boiling  water,  letting  it  stand 
a  minute  or  two  for  the  leaves  to  swell.  Then  fill  with  the  needed 
amount  of  water  still  boiling,  this  being  about  a  small  cupful  to  a 
person.  Cover  closely  and  let  it  stand  five  minutes.  Ten  will  be 
required  for  English  breakfast-tea,  but  never  boil  either,  above  all  in 
a  tin  pot.  Boiling  liberates  the  tannic  acid  of  the  tea,  which  acts 
upon  the  tin,  making  a  compound,  bitter  and  metallic  in  taste,  and 
unfit  for  human  stomachs. 

Nutrient  Enema.  (From  "Chambers'  Manual  of  Diet.") — Take 
half  a  pint  of  beef-tea,  thicken  with  one  teaspoonful  of  tapioca. 
Reduce   i  ^  ounces  of  raw  beef  to  a  fine  pulp,  rub  through  a  sieve 


IN    THE   sick-room;    OR,    SANITARY    NURSING.  1 75 

and  mix  with  the  whole  twenty  grains  of  acid  pepsin  and  four  grains 
of  diastase,  or  a  dessertspoonful  of  malt  flour.  Use  not  more  than 
quarter  of  a  pint  at  once.     Beef  tea  alone  may  also  be  used. 

Egg  Gruel. — Beat  the  yolk  of  one  egg  with  a  tablespoonful  of 
sugar  till  creamy  and  light.  Pour  slowly  on  this,  stirring  all  the 
time,  one  teacupful  of  bouiiig  water.  Beat  the  white  of  the  egg  to  a 
stiff  froth  with  one  teaspoonful  of  powdered  sugar,  and  a  drop  or  two 
of  any  flavoring  allowed,  and  put  on  the  top.  The  yolk  of  the  eg'g 
is  more  digestible  for  the  slight  cooking  given  by  the  boiling  water. 
The  white  is  much  more  digestible  uncooked.  A  teaspoonful  of 
ivine  may  be  added  if  ordered. 


THE  PHYSICIAN  IN  THE  HOME, 


♦•  Reason's  whole  pleasure,  all  the  joys  of  sense, 
Lie  in  three  words, — health,  peace  and  competence. 
But  health  consists  with  temperance  alone, 
And  peace,  O  Virtue !  peace  is  all  thine  own." — Pope. 

H ETHER  you  live  in  town  or  in  the  country  there  are 
times  when  a  physician  cannot  be  had  just  when  he  is 
needed,  and  therefore  some  knowledge  of  medicine 
and  the  laws  of  health  is  indispensable.  If  you  wish 
to  keep  yourself  and  your  children  in  health  you  must 
not  only  be  careful  in  eating  and  drinking,  but  in  everything  that  has 
to  do  with  the  condition  of  your  bodies.  A  supply  of  simple  remedies 
for  ordinary  ailments  should  always  be  at  hand.  You  may  destroy 
the  strongest  constitution  and  poison  the  healthiest  blood  by  disobey- 
ing the  laws  of  health,  and  you  may  wonderfully  strengthen  and 
improve  your  own  health  and  that  of  your  children  by  a  careful  and 
constant  attention  to  those  laws. 

I  say  "  constant "  attention,  because  so  many  people  take  care  of 
their  bodies  by  "  fits  and  starts,"  and  begin  all  sorts  of  regulations 
which  they  break  within  a  week  or  two.  A  tonic  is  recommended  to 
them,  and  the  dose  to  be  taken  as  well  as  the  precise  time  to  take  it 
is  prescribed,  but  after  the  first  dose  or  two  one  hears  the  cry,  "O, 
I  have  forgotten  my  medicine ;  I  wonder  had  I  better  take  it  now ! " 
If  it  should  be  taken  before  meals  such  persons  take  it  after ;  if  it 
should  be  taken  after  meals  they  take  it  before.  If  a  teaspoonful  is 
the  dose  they  take  a  tablespoonful,  or,  more  frequently,  to  save  the 
trouble  of  a  spoon,  they  take  "  a  swallow,"  the  size  of  which  will  de- 
pend upon  their  liking  or  disliking  the  taste  of  it. 

But  medicines  only  need  to  be  taken  when   there  is  something 
(176) 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  1 77 

wrong.  Why  should  there  be  something  wrong  ?  Doctors  and 
medicines  are  luxuries  which  those  with  large  families  and  limited 
incomes  ought  to  try  to  do  without.  Not  that  the  doctor's  practice 
ought  to  be  taken  away  from  him  ;  he  ought  to  have  a  regular  income 
and  be  relieved  from  all  financial  anxiety,  just  for  calling  upon  every- 
body and  asking  how  they  feel  and  telling  them  how  everybody  else 
in  the  neighborhood  is  feeling.  Doctors  are  among  the  most  genial 
of  men ;  they  can  amuse  and  excruciate  at  the  same  time,  and  make 
you  laugh  and  howl  during  the  same  operation.  The  doctor  is  gen- 
erally the  best  informed  man  in  the  village,  and  his  society  is  on  this 
account  much  sought  for  and  valued.  But  there  are  other  ways  of 
getting  on  friendly  terms  with  him  than  making  one's  self  sick,  and  you 
need  not  pay  your  first  visit  to  him  on  a  broken  leg.  He  will  be  still 
invaluable  in  his  neighborhood  if  he  give  warning  of  epidemics,  and, 
like  the  curfew  bell,  sound  the  hour  when  everybody  should  be  in 
bed.  His  cheerful  greeting  will  do  you  more  good  than  his  long- 
drawn  face  when  he  sees  you  in  a  very  bad  way.  Let  your  children 
hail  his  coming  as  the  "minister  of  health,"  not  a  "black  prophet" 
of  stomachic  woe.  The  American  doctor,  as  a  rule,  is  so  true  a  man, 
so  noble  a  gentleman,  and  so  proud  of  his  profession  as  a  conserver 
of  health,  that  he  would  far  rather  see  you  well  than  sick  even  if  he 
loses  a  fee  by  it.  There  are  some  places  where  the  policemen  are 
promoted  according  to  the  number  of  arrests  they  have  made  during 
the  year.  It  is  therefore  to  the  interest  of  each  policeman  to  arrest 
as  many  persons  as  he  possibly  can,  so  he  improves  the  opportunity 
by  locking  up  as  a  "  suspicious  character  "  any  young  man  from  the 
country  who  asks  him  the  time  or  the  distance.  But  surely  the 
better  plan  would  be  to  make  his  promotion  dependent  upon  the 
good  order  and  absence  of  violence  on  his  "  beat,"  just  as  judges  com- 
pliment the  grand  juries  when  there  are  very  few  cases  on  the  calendar 
awaiting  trial. 

So  ought  it  to  be  with  the  village  doctor  and   undertaker.     Their 
fees  ought  to  depend  not  upon  the  number  of  patients  they  give  physic 

to  or  bury,  but  upon  the  health  of  the  community  in  which  they  live, 
12 


1^8  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

How  beautiful  would  be  the  ideal  parish  in  which  the  doctor  should 
be  able  to  say,  "  I  have  not  lost  a  patient ! "  not  because  he  has  no 
practice,  or  because  he  has  very  nearly  lost  a  great  many  patients,  but 
because  young  and  old,  weak  and  strong,  rich  and  poor,  follow  the 
rules  he  constantly  impresses  upon  them  for  the  preservation  of  health 
and  the  avoiding  of  sickness. 

What  a  glorious  sight  it  would  be  to  have,  in  such  a  parish,  a 
beautiful  cemetery,  filled  with  flowers  and  trees  and  neatly  trimmed 
grass-plots,  and  on  some  summer  morning  to  assemble  the  parson, 
and  the  doctor  and  the  undertaker  and  all  the  inhabitants  to  have  a 
real  good  time  !  After  a  repast  of  perfectly  wholesome  and  delicious 
food,  which  the  doctor  should  certify  could  do  no  harm  to  the  liver 
and  cause  the  digestive  organs  no  uneasiness,  accompanied  with  such 
refreshing  beverages  as  should  "  cheer  but  not  inebriate  "  or  bring 
any  headache,  the  sexton  should  be  called  upon  to  report  the  state 
of  the  cemetery.  If  he  could  only  say,  "  Ladies  and  gentlemen, 
citizens  and  taxpayers  of  Healthytown,  everything  I  have  planted  in 
this  cemetery  is  doing  well,  growing  up,  budding,  blossoming,  and 
looking  finely.  The  grass  is  tender  and  green  because  of  the  fine 
soil;  the  flowers  and  trees  are  all  beautiful  from  the  same  cause; 
the  calm  you  see  around  you  is  not  the  silence  of  death,  but  the 
tranquillity  of  life.  The  cemetery  of  Healthytown  has  no  corpses 
in  it." 

Then  the  good  old  parson  would  tell  his  story.  "  I  have  preached 
for  fifty  years  in  yonder  church  that  all  flesh  is  grass  and  that  grass 
withers  and  fades,  but  as  the  grass  in  this  cemetery  is  still  green,  so 
the  people  of  Healthytown  have  perpetual  health,  and  even  the  oldest 
inhabitants,  like  myself,  enjoy  a  green  old  age.  I  have  not  written  a 
funeral  sermon  since  I  prepared  one  for  the  funeral  of  Farmer  Fresh- 
twig,  and  he  disappointed  me  by  getting  well — for  it  was  a  very  fine 
sermon  and  a  pity  not  to  use  it.  If  it  were  not  that  this  cemetery 
looks  so  pretty  as  it  is  and  that  the  marble  slabs  with  no  inscriptions 
look  better  than  with  them,  I  should  almost  suggest  that  it  is  about 
time  for  some  of  us  to  die." 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME. 


179 


Then  the  doctor  would  step  forward  and  say,  that  when  he  first 
came  to  Heahhytown  he  found  many  children  with  the  measles,  and 
many  old  folks  with  the  colic,  and  many  middle-aged  people  suffering 
from  headaches  and  chills  and  fever  and  indigestion.  But  since  the 
sausage  factory  had  been  removed,  and  the  sewage  and  drainage 
altered,  and  the  pump  water  was  no  longer  drunk,  and  garbage  and 
refuse  were  no  longer  thrown  in  the  street,  he  rejoiced  to  say  that 
everybody  was  feeling  well,  and  that  he  felt  much  greater  pleasure 
in  giving  this  certificate  of  life  than  a  certificate  of  death. 

Lastly,  the  undertaker  would  tell  them  that  he  had  added  cabinet 
making  to  coffins,  as  the  demand  for  the  latter  was  not  brisk  enough 
to  suit  him,  and  that  instead  of  putting  silver  mountings  for  the  boxes 
of  the  dead,  he  should  be  very  happy  to  supply  elegant  chests  of 
drawers  and  work-boxes  to  the  living. 

This  beautiful  world,  which  disease  and  death  have  changed  from 
a  paradise  into  "the  place  of  a  skull,"  might  be  changed  again  into 
a  universal  Healthytown  if  people  would  only  attend  to  the  laws  of 
nature  for  the  preservation  of  health. 

The  first  of  these  laws  of  health  is  cleanliness.  Be  clean  yourself 
and  make  every  one  belonging  to  you  be  clean.  Shun  the  company 
of  slovenly,  unwashed,  and  dirty  people.  Cleanliness,  like  charity, 
must  begin  at  home,  and  if  you  ask  how  to  begin,  the  answer  is  a 
simple  one,  "  Was/i  and  be  clean."  Many  people,  especially  women 
and  children,  are  quite  willing  to  be  clean  if  they  were  not  required 
to  wash  in  order  to  be  so.  "A  lick  and  a  promise  "  is  the  extent  of 
the  children's  acquaintance  with  soap  and  water.  Some  of  them 
scream  at  the  sight  of  a  bath-tub,  as  if  the  delightful  feeling  of  plenty 
of  water  on  the  skin  were  as  painful  as  having  a  tooth  out.  This, 
of  course,  is  unnatural,  and  must  be  the  result  of  unnatural  train- 
ing. Children  are  imitative  little  creatures,  and  if  they  are  afraid 
of  the  bath-tub,  it  is  because  they  notice  that  their  parents  seldom 
use  it. 

What  do  the  parents  too  often  plead  in  excuse  for  not  bathing  ? 
The  man,  if  he  neglects  it,  pleads  that   he  begins  work  too  earl)-  in 


i8o  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

the  morning  to  feel  like  bathing,  and  that  he  is  too  tired  at  night  and 
has  to  go  to  bed  when  the  day's  work  is  over.  Women — some  of 
them,  not  all — object  to  the  free  use  of  the  bath  for  themselves  and 
their  families  that  it  makes  work ;  that  water  is  so  often  "spilled  and 
has  to  be  wiped  up ;  that  so  many  more  towels  have  to  be  used  that 
it  makes  the  washing  too  heavy,  and  so  forth.  The  real  truth  is  that 
they  have  not  vitality  and  energy  enough  to  keep  their  bodies  in  re- 
pair;  they  are  too  "  tired"  to  keep  themselves  clean.  Some  of  them 
are  so  used  to  dirty  faces  and  hands  that  they  would  feel  as  great  a 
transformation  after  a  thorough,  full  length  bath,  with  the  head  ducked 
under  often,  and  rough  towels  to  dry  with,  as  a  Chinaman  does  when 
his  pigtail  is  cut  off.  They  would  not  know  themselves,  and  their 
friends  would  not  know  them.  What  a  dreadful  shock  it  would  be 
to  some  families  to  be  accused  of  being  clean  ! 

Those  who  omit  to  bathe  regularly  lose  one  of  the  greatest  enjoy- 
ments, as  well  as  one  of  the  greatest  preservatives  of  health.  Disease 
loves  dirt.  Long  life  loves  cleanliness.  Some  doctors  think  that 
once  in  forty-eight  hours — that  is,  a  bathing  of  the  whole  body  from 
head  to  foot  every  other  day — is  sufficient ;  but  a  bath  every  morn- 
ing when  one  is  in  sound  health  cannot  do  any  harm.  Frequency  in 
ablutions,  of  course,  depends  somewhat  upon  the  nature  of  the  per- 
son's occupation.  Where  copious  perspiration  is  produced  by  the 
daily  work,  a  cold  bath  every  morning  is  no  more  than  health  and 
cleanliness  require.  Where  there  is  little  action  of  the  skin  and  no 
accretions  of  dirt  to  clean  off,  a  man  or  woman  can  bathe  every  day 
or  every  other  day,  at  their  own  discretion.  But  even  the  finest  flan- 
nel or  merino,  or  any  other  fabric  next  the  skin,  will  render  a  thorough 
cleansing  of  the  pores  conducive  to  health.  And  it  is  a  fact  beyond 
all  dispute,  that  those  who  have  accustomed  themselves  to  a  cold 
bath  every  morning,  can  get  v/et,  pass  from  a  hot  temperature  of  air 
to  a  cold  one,  and  the  contrary,  as  when  passing  out  of  a  crowded 
theatre  or  church  into  the  street,  without  ever  taking  cold. 

Some  people  in  bathing  make  a  great  rnistake  by  using  tepid  or 
lukewarm  water,  because  it  feels  so  soothing  and  luxurious.     This  is 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  l8l 

very  lowering,  and  would  in  time  reduce  the  vitality  ana  muscular 
and  nervous  energy,  even  of  the  strongest.  Extremes  meet  in  the 
temperature  of  water.  Water  as  cold  as  you  can  bear  it  will  strengthen 
you,  and  water  as  hot  as  you  can  bear  it  will  do  the  same;  but  luke- 
warm water  relaxes  and  debilitates  the  system.  If  the  water  is  too 
cold,  only  take  the  chill  off  it. 

Be  sure  to  dry  yourself  with  a  rough,  not  a  soft,  towel,  so  that  your 
skin  may  glow  and  be  quickened  into  active  work.  If  you  have 
aches  and  stiffness  in  your  joints,  get  yourself  rubbed,  or  rub  yourself 
as  well  as  you  can  with  oil,  which  is  very  pleasant,  especially  if 
pleasantly  perfumed,  and  will  give  suppleness  and  ease  to  the  joints. 
Do  not  stay  too  long  in  the  water — ten  minutes  should  be  the  limit 
— or  you  will  feel  a  reaction  of  lassitude.  Dry  yourself  thoroughly 
after  bathing,  and  never  put  on  underclothing  that  is  damp  from  per- 
spiration after  drying  your  skin. 

It  seems  unnecessary  to  remind  any  sensible  person  of  the  folly 
of  sitting  in  wet  clothes,  yet  men  frequently  do  so  to  escape  the  trouble 
of  changing,  and  many  victims  to  rheumatism  and  consumption  are 
made  by  it. 

Many  persons  suffer  with  cold  feet,  the  result  of  imperfect  circula- 
tion and  poverty  of  blood.  Keep  them  well  covered  by  the  blankets 
at  night;  rub  them  to  promote  circulation,  and  if  these  remedies  fail 
sponge  them  with  cold  water  and  put  a  thick  pair  of  socks  on.  Take 
the  socks  off  when  they  get  warm.  Put  mustard  in  the  water  if  the 
sponging  and  rubbing  do  not  suffice. 

Sponging  the  whole  body  both  night  and  morning  where  the  full 
bath  is  not  at  hand,  followed  by  a  thorough  rubbing  with  a  rough 
towel  or  gentle  scrubbing  with  a  flesh-brush,  arc  excellent  both  for 
cleanliness  and  circulation. 

Next  to  the  thorough  purifying  of  the  skin  and  invigorating  the 
system  by  cold  water,  moderate  exercise  and  wholesome  food  arc  the 
best  preservatives  of  health.  Never  bolt  your  food,  or  allow  your 
children  to  do  so.  Let  everything  you  eat  be  thoroughly  chewed. 
Give  yourself  a  rest  after  dinner,  if  only  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  for 


1 82  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

the  rushing  to  heavy  work  just  after  a  full  meal  is  a  fruitful  cause 
of  indigestion  and  dyspepsia. 

Always  keep  bicarbonate  of  soda  in  the  house  in  case  of  sour 
stomach,  heartburn,  and  flatulency.  It  will  afford  greater  and  speedier 
relief  than  anything  else,  but  it  should  never  be  used  except  in  these 
cases,  and  then  only  a  tablespoonful  or  wine-glass  should  be  taken 
of  the  solution  you  make,  which  should  be  in  the  proportion  of  half 
a  teaspoonful  of  the  bicarbonate  to  a  tumbler  of  water.  Take  a 
sip  as  you  need  it.  Used  constantly  it  injures  the  coats  of  the 
^mach. 

In  exercise,  take  sufficient  every  day,  either  in  walking,  riding, 
running  or  athletic  sports,  to  make  you  feel  strong  and  vigorous, 
but  be  careful  not  to  overdo  it  or  you  will  weaken  the  action  of  the 
heart  and  make  it  irregular.  Many  deaths  from  heart  disease  are 
caused  by  excessive  muscular  exercise  in  rowing,  weight-lifting  and 
the  like. 

Both  moderate  exercise  and  properly  digested  food  promote  healthy 
sleep  at  night.  Never  eat  heavy  suppers  just  before  going  to  bed, 
and  avoid  the  other  extreme  of  going  to  bed  with  an  empty  stomach 
after  many  hours'  fasting.  A  liglit  and  simple  supper  about  an  hour 
before  retiring  will  help  you  to  sleep  well.  Stimulants,  like  strong 
tea,  should  be  avoided  at  night.  A  glass  of  pure,  fresh  milk  before 
going  to  bed  will  quiet  the  nerves  and  assist  repose.  A  little  pure 
Holland  gin  may  be  added  to  it  in  case  of  age  and  debility.  Nar- 
cotics should  not  be  taken  except  under  positive  medical  advice,  as 
when  once  commenced  they  are  very  difficult  to  dispense  with.  It 
is  better  in  many  cases  to  get  half  a  night's  rest  naturally  than  sleep 
soundly  the  whole  night  under  opiates.  Where  stimulants  are  taken, 
you  should  measure  the  dose  just  as  you  would  medicine,  and  limit 
yourself  rigorously  to  the  quantity  that  does  you  good.  In  the  vigor 
of  life  and  health  it  is  as  foolish  to  accustom  one's  self  to  alcoholic 
stimulants  as  it  would  be  to  live  on  borrowed  money  while  one  has 
plenty  of  one's  own  lying  idle  at  the  bank.  So  far  as  stimulants  are 
useful  it  is  not  as  beverages  but  as  tonics,  to  arrest  physical  waste, 
not  to  create  it. 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  iS' 


J 


The  breathing  of  pure  air  is  essential  to  health.  Some  people  have 
such  a  dread  of  fresh  air  that  they  let  it  in  during  the  daytime  as  if 
they  were  admitting  an  objectionable  visitor  on  the  sly,  and  at  night- 
time they  say  to  it:  "  Now,  Fresh  Air,  it  is  our  bed-time,  and  it  is 
time  for  you  to  go."  Down  goes  every  window  and  every  door  is 
shut  close.  The  fold  is  made  air-tight  for  the  night,  and  the  family 
wonders  why  they  rise  feverish  in  the  morning  and  have  sallow  com- 
plexions and  suffer  with  coughs  and  chest  troubles.  Always  let  fresh 
air  into  your  bedroom  while  you  sleep.  This  does  not  mean  that 
you  are  to  sleep  in  a  draught ;  but  let  there  be  sufficient  ventilation 
to  keep  impure  air  out  of  your  lungs. 

As  for  changes  of  clothing,  common  sense  should  teach  you  how 
to  dress  in  season.  But  in  a  changeable  climate  you  should  be  con- 
stantly on  your  guard  to  adapt  the  thickness  of  your  coverings  to 
the  temperature  of  the  day.  The  weather  is  a  deceitful  prophet,  and 
you  may  have  deep  reason  to  regret  the  sudden  leaving  off  of  wraps. 
But  your  own  sense  must  guide  you  in  this  matter,  for  every  one  is 
his  own  guardian  in  matters  of  health. 

Indeed,  the  strange  thing  is  that  to  rational  human  beings  any  advice 
or  rules  should  be  necessary.  It  is  a  humiliating  fact  that  there  are 
people  who  have  to  be  reminded  that  they  need  washing  and  exer- 
cise, care  in  eating  and  drinking,  proper  changes  of  raiment  and  the 
like.  It  is  painful  to  be  a  cross-questioning  missionary  of  cleanliness 
and  have  to  ask  people  whether  they  clean  their  teeth,  pare  thetr 
nails,  or  brush  their  hair. 

Yet  how  many  persons  who  would  otherwise  be  attractive  are 
spoiled  by  discolored  and  irregular  teeth,  as  though  the  mouth  out 
of  which  should  come  sweetness  were  a  lumber  room  for  broken 
furniture  and  never  needed  cleansing!  Rinse  your  mouth  and  brush 
your  teeth  every  night  and  morning,  if  not  after  each  meal.  Get  rid 
at  once  of  offensive  teeth,  remembering  that  an  empty  house  is  better 
than  a  bad  tenant.  If  you  cannot  do  without  teeth  and  have  lost  all 
your  own,  the  dentist  will  supply  you.  Only  you  must  not  swallow 
them,  as  they  are  an  expensive  diet  and  not  easily  digested.   Also:  do 


184  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

not  plaster  your  hair  with  pomatum  and  bear's  grease,  the  bear  having 
been  a  pig,  but  use  only  a  little  oil  if  your  hair  needs  lubrication. 
Grease  clogs  the  pores  of  the  skin  and  engenders  headache  in  con- 
sequence of  the  suppressed  perspiration.  Cold  water  is  the  best  tonic 
for  the  head  and  hair. 

Lastly,  gentle  reader,  be  regular  in  your  habits  as  to  rising,  going 
to  bed  and  meal  times.  Don't  fool  with  your  stomach  or  brain  or 
nerves,  for  they  are  partners  in  one  firm  that  will  stand  no  fooling, 
but  will  avenge  upon  you  terribly  a  defiance  of  their  rules.  Old  saws 
are  often  better  than  modern  instances,  so  do  not  forget  the  nursery 
rhyme : 

"  Early  to  bed  and  early  to  rise 
Is  the  way  to  be  healthy,  wealthy  and  wise." 

MEDICINAL  AND  HYGIENIC  RECIPES. 

Bruises. — Use  warm  fomentations,  flannel  dipped  in  warm  water 
laid  over  the  part,  or  a  bread-and-water  poultice.  If  very  severe  or 
near  a  joint,  put  on  leeches.  If  near  the  knee,  keep  perfectly  quiet, 
and  do  not  attempt  to  walk.  Keep  on  fomenting  or  poulticing  till 
the  swelling  goes  down  and  the  pain  be  gone.  Some  prefer  rags 
dipped  in  Goulard  lotion  (that  is,  one  drachm  of  Goulard's  extract 
to  six  ounces  of  soft  water)  to  the  warm  fomentations.  Other  medi- 
cal men  of  great  experience  strongly  recommend  a  lotion  of  tincture 
of  arnica  and  water;  one  part  arnica  to  ten  of  water.  Keep  the 
patient  quite  quiet. 

Cramp. — Put  the  patient  at  once  into  a  hot  bath,  if  possible;  and 
if  not,  sponge  all  over  in  water  as  hot  as  he  can  bear  it.  Unclasp 
his  Hhnds,  if  much  contracted.  Put  smelling  bottle  to  his  nose,  and 
give  weak  brandy  and  water,  or  some  stimulant,  and  put  to  bed,  and 
warm  the  bed,  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  warming-pan  in  the  house. 
If  the  cramp  is  only  local,  that  is,  affects  only  one  limb,  such  as  the 
arm  or  leg,  use  plenty  of  friction  and  extension  of  the  muscles  under 
spasm. 

Fits. — If  you  are  present  when  a  person  is  first  taken  with  a  fit. 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  1 85 

put,  if  you  can  get  one,  a  bottle  of  smelling  salts  to  his  nose,  and  per- 
haps you  may  ward  the  fit  off.  If  not,  immediately  unfasten  the 
neckcloth,  unbutton  the  waistcoat,  and  loosen  the  braces.  Give  all 
the  fresh  air  possible,  take  the  shoes  off,  and  bathe  the  forehead  with 
cold  water;  then  put  a  piece  of  soft  wood,  or  something  to  save  the 
tongue  being  bitten,  between  the  teeth;  a  cork  even  will  do.  Then, 
if  possible,  put  a  strong  mustard  poultice  on  the  back  of  the  neck, 
and  put  the  feet  into  hot  water. 

Undress  and  put  the  patient  into  bed  as  soon  as  possible;  let  him 
sleep  six,  eight,  or  ten  hours.  Do  not  attempt  to  grasp  his  limbs  tight, 
or  hold  them  tight  while  he  is  in  convulsions,  as  he  will  only  bruise 
himself  Restrain,  but  do  not  violently  oppose,  the  struggles.  For 
cases  of  this  kind  give  the  simplest  and  lightest  diet:  beef-tea,  rice, 
milk,  tea  and  toast,  chicken-broth,  etc.;  and  be  very  careful  to  let  no 
one  subject  to  fits  overload  his  stomach,  or  otherwise  play  the  fool 
with  himself 

DiARRHCEA. — Do  not  try  to  stifle  it  immediately  with  chalk-mixture, 
opium  pills,  or  any  of  the  common  di^rhoea  medicines,  but  give  first 
a  small  dose  of  castor  oil  or  tincture  of  rhubarb,  or  Gregory's  pow- 
der, and  wait  till  it  has  operated:  taking  care  to  keep  the  patient,  if 
possible,  perfectly  quiet,  and  on  his  back.  In  case  there  is  much 
pain,  you  may  put  five  drops  of  laudanum  into  the  dose  of  tincture 
of  rhubarb.  If  the  diarrhoea  still  continues  after  the  medicine  has 
operated,  and  you  cannot  get  a  doctor,  then  give,  according  to  age 
and  strength,  five,  ten,  or  fifteen  drops  of  chlorodyne  in  a  wine-glass 
of  water  every  two  hours;  and  if  that  does  not  answer,  then  a  half- 
grain  or  one  grain  opium  pill  every  two  hours,  or  a  wine-glass  of 
water  with  fifteen  to  twenty  drops  of  laudanum,  and  a  little  essence 
of  peppermint  and  powdered  ginger.  Feed  the  patient  with  dry 
toast,  tea  without  milk,  rice-pudding  and  arrowroot;  allow  no  meat 
and  no  vegetables,  and  keep  him  quiet  in  his  berth;  a  warm  bed  is 
best  of  all.  If  you  keep  on  your  legs,  or  moving  much  about,  you 
may  have  a  very  bad  time  of  it.     A  rice  diet  is  very  advisable. 

A  very  able    medical    man    states    that    he    finds   the    following 


1 86  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

treatment  to  answer  admirably :  Commence  with  a  mild  dose  of  some 
opening  medicine  or  other,  and  then  give  ten  drops  of  diluted  sul- 
phuric acid  three  times  a  day  in  a  little  water.  For  common  cases, 
not  violent,  of  diarrhoea,  the  homoeopathic  treatment  of  camphor 
pills,  one  or  two  every  quarter  of  an  hour  or  so,  works  extremely 
well. 

To  Stop  the  Flow  of  Blood. — Bind  the  cut  with  cobwebs  and 
brown  sugar,  pressed  on  like  lint;  or — if  you  cannot  procure  these — 
with  the  fine  dust  of  tea. 

For  Headache,  wet  with  camphor  a  piece  of  flannel  (red),  sprinkle 
with  black  pepper  and  bind  it  on  the  head ;  before  it  is  on  long  the 
headache  will  be  gone. 

Fainting. — Put  the  patient  immediately  in  a  chair,  and  make  him 
sit  down,  and  bend  his  head  low  between  his  knees,  until  the  head 
be  brought  pretty  well  on  a  level  with  the  lower  part  of  the  stomach: 
by  these  means  (the  feeling  of)  faintness  will  at  once  pass  off. 

Lumbago. — Use  plenty  of  friction,  with  a  Turkish  towel,  or  if  you 
can  bear  it,  with  a  flesh-brush.  Apply  flannel,  moistened  with  mus- 
tard liniment,  to  the  place  where  the  pain  is  bad,  and  wear  a  flannel 
belt  round  the  waist  and  loins — red  flannel  is  best.  If  you  have  no 
mustard  liniment  at  hand,  use  a  mustard  poultice  or  plaster,  sprinkled 
with  a  few  drops  of  spirits  of  turpentine:  it  will  answer  the  same 
purpose.  A  Turkish  bath,  if  you  can  get  one,  or  if  not,  any  medicine 
to  act  upon  the  skin  and  bring  out  perspiration,  is  generally  useful. 

Measles. — First  and  foremost,  do  not  invite  it,  in  case  it  is  preva- 
lent, by  catching  cold,  lying  on  damp  grass,  by  any  exposure  to  wet, 
cold,  or  damp,  or  by  disordering  your  stomach  by  sweets,  pastry, 
and  90  forth.  If  measles  is  prevalent,  such  a  course  of  conduct 
would  be  especially  foolish. 

Symptoms. — Eyes  running,  hoarseness,  violent  sneezing;  on  the 
third  or  fourth  day  a  rash  comes  out,  much  as  if  the  patient  had 
speckled  his  face  with  raspberry  jam. 

Treatment. — Put  the  patient  to  bed,  and  keep  him  warm;  allow  no 
cold  draught  in  his  room,  but  do  not  let  it  get  close.     Wash  the 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  I87 

hands  and  face  with  hot  water;  keep  the  eyes  clear,  and  manage 
somehow  to  keep  down  the  cough,  by  a  bran  poultice  if  necessary, 
till  the  doctor  comes. 

Poison, — Send  at  once  for  a  doctor,  and  lose  no  time.  Meanwhile 
administer  doses  of  warm  water  with  plenty  of  mustard  in  it,  or  else 
ipecacuanha  wine,  and  irritate  the  throat  by  the  feather  end  of  a 
quill.  Should  the  case  be  past  the  power  of  sickness  and  relief  by 
vomiting  and  there  be  no  stomach-pump,  then  perhaps  your  best 
chance  is  to  administer  a  strong  dose  of  castor  oil,  or  some  even 
potent  purgative.  Of  course  if  you  know  any  special  antidote  fbr 
the  special  poison  that  has  been  taken,  use  it. 

Sting  of  Wasp,  Bee,  or  Hornet. — Take  care  and  extract  with 
your  fingers  or  a  small  pair  of  tweezers  any  bit  of  the  sting  that  is 
left  in  the  wound.  The  place  may  be  then  gcntl}' squeezed  to  extract 
the  venom,  or  even  sucked  with  impunity,  if  there  be  no  scratch, 
crack,  or  abrasion,  on  the  lips.  Then  wash  with  warm  water  and  rub 
some  sweet  oil  into  the  place,  which  will  generally  abate  the  pain. 
A  small  poultice  may  be  put  on  at  night,  if  the  pain  be  not  all  gone, 
or  the  place  be  still  swollen.  Ijoecacuanha  powder  poultices  arc 
useful. 

Toothache,  How  to  Treat. — To  alleviate  the  wretched  pain — 
for  nothing  probably  short  of  "cold  steel,"  that  is,  extraction,  can 
work  a  perfect  cure — take  at  once  a  tolerabl}^  strong  dose  of  opening 
medicine;  as  soon  as  this  operates,  in  all  probability  the  pain  will 
be  gone  for  a  week  or  two.  Meanwhile,  apply  a  small  mustard  poul- 
tice outside,  just  over  the  place  where  the  pain  is  most  violent,  and 
rub  the  gum  and  the  tooth  with  chloroform  and  laudanum  mixed. 
If  the  tooth  be  a  hollow  one  and  very  painful,  then  put  in  the  cavity 
a  little  cotton-wool  dipped  in  chloroform  and  laudanum.  It  will  ease 
the  dreadful  pain.  A  little  bit  of  cotton  dipped  in  a  solution  of 
shellac,  or  of  gum  mastic  and  spirits  of  wine,  makes  a  good  tempo- 
rary stopping  for  very  bad  teeth.  Avoid  the  ordinary  vaunted 
"  nostrums,"  that  is,  the  quack  medicines  said  instantly  to  remove 
toothache.     Creosote  is  the  safest  domestic  remedy  to  employ,  if  the 


1 88  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

pain  be  very  bad ;  only  get  a  friend  to  employ  it,  by  putting  a  little 
bit  of  cotton-wool  dipped  in  it  into  the  hollow  of  the  tooth  for  you, 
and  do  not  try  to  put  it  in  yourself,  or  you  will  scarify  your  tongue 
and  gums. 

Ammonia  is  also  a  good  remedy  for  toothache.  Apply  a  small 
bit  of  cotton  saturated  in  a  strong  solution  of  ammonia  to  the  de- 
fective tooth,  and  after  a  momentary  nervous  pain,  the  aching  will 
have  ceased. 

Teeth,  Hints  on  the  Care  of,  etc. — The  tooth-brush,  which 
should  be  used  night  and  morning,  should  be  small,  and  have 
its  not  too  stiff  bristles  arranged  in  separate  bundles  (in  order 
that  they  may  pass  readily  between  the  teeth  and  into  the  natural 
depressions).  The  outer  and  inner  surface  of  both  front  and  back 
teeth  should  be  brushed.  The  direction  of  the  brushing  should 
be  from  the  gums;  that  is,  downwards  for  the  upper  teeth,  and 
upwards  for  the  lower.  This  mode  of  cleaning  the  teeth  is  the  best 
preventive  against  decay,  which  causes  toothache,  and  also  against 
the  accumulation  of  tartar,  which  makes  the  breath  foul,  and  in  course 
of  time  causes  the  teeth  to  loosen  and  fall  out.  If  you  use  any  tooth- 
powder,  you  cannot  go  far  wrong  in  employing  camphorated  chalk, 
to  be  bought  at  any  chemist's.  Some  prefer  powdered  chalk  mixed 
with  castile  soap.  A  teaspoonful  of  bicarbonate  of  soda  and  a  table- 
spoonful  of  Eau-de-Cologne,  to  a  quart  of  water,  make  an  excel- 
lent preservative  rinse  for  the  mouth  and  teeth  at  night,  and  after 
the  taking  of  acid  medicine.  If  the  gums  need  hardening  use  a  little 
borax  dissolved  in  water. 

Whooping-Cough. — Not  much  can  be  done  by  unprofessional  per- 
sons in  the  way  of  cutting  short  an  attack  of  this  complaint;  but  the 
following  general  directions  may  be  useful.  Keep  the  patient  in- 
doors, and  feed,  or  rather  nourish  well ;  attend  to  his  general  health 
by  keeping  the  room  warm  and  well  ventilated,  but  with  no  cold 
draughts.  Keep  the  bowels  regular,  and  give  a  drop  or  two  drops 
of  tincture  of  belladonna  in  a  little  water  every  now  and  then.  Some 
much  recommend  a  little  alum  dissolved  in  water,  or  a  little  alum  to 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  1 89 

suck,  or  cochineal ;  but  the  belladonna  is  preferable.  As  whooping- 
cough  may  cause  fits  and  other  dangerous  consequences,  if  possible, 
always  call  in  a  doctor. 

Bronchitis. — In  case  you  can  get  no  proper  doctor,  apply  linseed- 
meal  poultices  to  the  throat  and  chest,  keeping  one  on,  constantly 
warm,  and  changing  it  when  it  begins  to  lose  its  heat.  Maintain 
also  a  warjn,  damp  atmosphere  in  the  room;  and  if  you  have  no 
proper  steaming  apparatus,  then  let  "  Polly  put  the  kettle  on "  the 
fire,  let  it  boil,  and  send  its  steam  out  into  the  room  for  the  patient 
to  inhale.  You  may,  too,  from  time  to  time,  bring  the  boiling 
kettle  near  the  patient,  and  let  him  inhale  some  of  the  steam  from  its 
spout;  only  dont  bring  it  too  near  him.  In  case  of  giving  medicine, 
you  cannot  go  very  wrong  in  the  following  prescription,  if  no  medi- 
cal man  can  be  had  to  give  a  better  one : — Ipecac,  wine,  ten  or  fifteen 
drops  in  three  teaspoonfuls  of  spirits  of  Mindererus,  that  is,  in  the 
solution  of  acetate  of  ammonia.  If  ipecac,  wine  is  not  to  be  had,  then 
use,  instead  of  it,  half  a  teaspoonful  of  oxymel  of  squills.  Take 
care,  above  everything,  that  your  patient  does  not  get  a  chill,  or  sit 
in  a  thorough  draught,  or  the  consequences  may  be  very  serious. 

Erysipelas. — Give  a  good  strong  saline  purgative  dose,  such  as 
sixty  grains  of  sulphate  of  magnesia  along  with  ten  grains  of  carbon- 
ate of  magnesia  and  an  ounce  of  peppermint  water  (and  if  you  cannot 
get  that,  plain  water)  to  begin  with.  In  case  you  are  where  there  is 
no  medicine  chest,  then  take  half  a  tumblerful  of  sea  water  before 
breakfast  instead. 

Follow  this  up  with  fifteen  to  twenty  drops  of  what  is  called  the 
tincture  of  steel — that  is,  "Tr.  Ferri  Perchlor."  bottle,  in  ihe  medicine 
chest,  so  labelled,  or  else  "  Liquor  Ferri  Perchlor."  which  is  a  good 
deal  stronger — combined  with  three  grains  of  quinine,  three  times  a 
day,  and  powder  the  part  affected  over- with  fine  flour,  or  else  cover 
it  with  cotton-wool  sprinkled  with  flour,  or  else  with  the  oxide  of 
zinc  powder,  if  it  be  within  reach. 

Painting  the  inflamed  part  over  with  collodion  is  the  practice  in 
some  of  our  hospitals,  and  limiting  the  spread  of  the  inflammation  by 
pencilling  it  round  with  a  stick  of  nitrate  of  silver — that  is,  caustic. 


ipO  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

Ingrowing  Nail. — First  and  foremost,  give  up  wearing  the  absurd 
tight  boot  or  shoe  that  has  been  the  sole  cause  of  this  painful — it 
may  be  dangerous — affection.  In  the  next  place,  do  not  attempt  to 
give  it  relief  by  cutting  away  the  nail,  where  it  eats  into  the  flesh 
of  the  toe  by  the  side,  but  proceed  to  thin  the  middle  of  the  nail,  its 
whole  length,  by  scraping  it  with  a  penknife. 

Poultices. — The  ingredients  best  suited  for  a  poultice  are  those 
which  retain  heat  the  longest;  of  these  ingredients,  the  best  are  lin- 
seed-meal, bran  and  bread. 

Jaundice. — Symptoms. — Yellowness  of  the  skin  and  of  the  white 
of  the  eyes.  Motions,  color  of  pipe-clay.  Urine,  dark  brown  or 
green  in  tint.  Loss  of  appetite,  flatulence,  sometimes  sickness. 
Causes. — Intemperance  in  liquors,  over-eating,  constipation,  exposure 
to  cold,  obstruction  in  gall-duct  from  a  gall-stone.  Treatment. — Low 
diet,  milk,  arrowroot ;  no  stimulants,  no  slops  ;  linseed  and  mustard 
poultices  over  the  pit  of  the  stomach.  Give  a  dose  of  blue  pill  and 
colocynth  at  night,  and  half  a  Seidlitz  powder  in  a  tumbler  of  water 
three  or  four  times  a  dav,  for  a  week  or  more.  If  there  has  been 
severe  pain  in  the  bowels  for  a  day  or  two  before  the  jaundice  comes 
on,  and  also  severe  vomiting,  the  disorder  is  probably  due  to  the 
passage  of  a  gall-stone  out  of  the  gall-bladder.  In  this  case,  use  hot 
bath,  and  give  doses  of  laudanum  (lO  to  20  drops  every  three  hours 
for  an  adult)  till  the  pain  is  relieved.  Employ  hot  fomentations  to 
the  bowels,  and  give  iced  milk  (if  you  can  get  it)  and  soda-water  to 
drink.  During  convalescence,  beware  of  exposure  to  cold  and  any 
intemperance  in  diet. 

How  TO  Give  Chloroform  in  Case  no  Doctor  can  be  had. — 
In  case  you  are  at  sea,  with  no  surgeon  on  board,  and  you  would 
fain  .still  the  agony  to  the  patient,  in  having  to  amputate,  at  the  first 
or  second  joint,  some  dreadfully  crushed  finger  or  thumb,  then  bear 
in  mind  that  the  administration  of  chloroform  is  preferable  to,  and 
safer  than,  that  of  ether,  unless  this  last  be  given  by  a  medical  man. 

First:  Do  «(?/ give  chloroform  unnecessarily;  for,  even  when  given 
with  every  precaution,  bear  in  mind  that  a  certain,  though  very  sni^ll, 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME. 


191 


risk  of  death  is  incurred.  Let  the  patient  take  no  food — in  any  case 
no  soHd  food — for  four  hours  before  the  operation.  This  will  lessen 
the  chance  of  his  vomiting.  First  take  off  his  boots  or  shoes,  loosen 
his  necktie,  shirt-collar  and  wrist-bands,  and  take  care  that  there  is 
nothing  tight  about  his  body.  You  want  all  the  room  and  space 
you  can  get  for  his  lungs  and  his  heart  to  act  freely.  Then  lay  him 
on  his  back  on  a  table,  with  his  head  on  a  low  pillow,  and  let  a  man 
stand  on  each  side  of  him  to  hold  his  arms ;  for,  if  he  be  a  strong, 
robust  man,  he  will  probably  struggle ;  if  he  be  an  intemperate  man, 
he  will  certainly  do  so.  Put  about  four  tablespoonfuls  of  chloroform 
into  a  phial  and  keep  it  in  your  waistcoat  pocket.  Next  fold  a  piece 
of  lint,  a  foot  long  and  four  inches  wide,  thrice,  and  turn  your  phial 
upside  down  in  the  centre  of  this,  with  the  lint  covering  the  mouth  of 
the  phial,  till  you  get  a  wet  spot  in  the  middle  of  it  about  the  big- 
ness of  a  penny-piece,  and  keep  this  spot  constantly  moist  by  appl}-- 
ing  the  phial  of  chloroform  to  it  occasionally.  Hold  the  lint  so  that 
the  wet  spot  be  three  inches  from  the  patient's  mouth  and  nostrils. 
Do  not  bid  him  to  inhale  it,  or  he  may  be  frightened  and  begin  to 
cough  and  choke;  but  bid  him  to  blowout  strongly,  while  you  bring 
the  moist  part  of  the  bit  of  lint  gradually  nearer  and  nearer  his  lips 
and  his  nostrils.  He  cannot  help  then  necessarily  taking  a  deep  in- 
spiration each  time  after  the  puff  he  has  given,  so  that  all  the  air  he 
breathes  will  pass  over  and  through  the  moistened  parts.  The 
patient  will  probably  struggle,  kick,  and  talk  nonsense.  Restrain 
him  without  using  much  force,  and  as  he  moves  his  head,  do  you  move 
the  bit  of  lint  in  unison  with  it,  and  keep  it  close  to,  but  not  touch- 
ing, his  face.  When  you  can  pluck  a  hair  out  of  his  temples  without 
his  feeling  it  or  flinching,  then  he  is  under  the  anaesthetic  influence, 
and  the  operation  can  begin.  Give  him  then  more  air  by  removing 
the  lint  a  little  farther  from  him  ;  but  do  not  take  it  away,  unless  he 
begins  to  snore.  This  sign  always  indicates  that  he  has  had  as 
much  as  is  at  all  safe  for  him,  and  you  must  remove  the  lint  till  the 


snormg  ceases. 


luring  the  operation,  while  the  patient  is  under  the   influence  of 


192  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

the  chloroform,  pay  the  greatest  attention  to  his  pulse  and  his  lips. 
Don't  take  your  eyes  off  his  lips  for  a  moment.  Should  these  be- 
come purple,  give  him  more  air;  and  should  the  breathing  cease, 
take  away  the  lint  and  throw  open  the  doors  and  windows,  and  resort 
to  artificial  means  of  producing  respiration. 

Should  the  patient  become  very  pale,  turn  his  head  on  one  side, 
as  this  sign  indicates  that  he  is  going  to  be  sick,  and  put  a  towel  or 
cloth  under  his  face,  that  he  may  be  sick  upon  it,  and  then  go  on 
with  the  inhalation.  The  pulse  generally  increases,  at  first,  in  force 
and  frequency  of  beats;  and  you  must  take  particular  notice  if  it  fails 
or  becomes  intermittent,  as  that  is  a  symptom  of  danger,  and  you 
must  instantly  stop  the  chloroform  and  give  all  the  air  you  can.  In 
any  case  of  danger  or  difficulty,  open  the  patient's  mouth  and  pull 
the  tongue  quite  forward. 

Lastly,  and  most  important,  if  any  indication  of  fainting  comes  on, 
keep  the  patient's  head  low,  and  do  not  on  any  account  raise  it.  A 
few  drops  of  brandy  gently  poured  between  the  gums  and  the  teeth 
will  trickle  slowly  down  the  throat  and  will  improve  the  pulse,  while 
any  attempt  to  make  the  patient  drink  in  the  usual  manner  will 
invariably  bring  on  coughing.  Remove  the  pillow  at  the  same 
time. 

When  the  operation  is  over,  and  you  wish  to  bring  the  patient  to, 
open  the  doors  and  windows,  and  allow  the  cool  air  to  play  upon  his 
face  and  chest.  It  is  sometimes,  but  rarely,  needful  to  slap  the  face 
with  a  wet  towel.  The  patient  will  be  drowsy  for  some  hours  after- 
wards, and  the  best  thing  to  do,  for  all  reasons,  is  to  let  him  sleep. 

Sucking  a  bit  of  rough  ice,  if  you  can  get  it,  always  allays  the 
thirst  and  nausea,  in  case  these  should  follow. 

The  Evil  Effects  of  Iced  Water. — One  of  the  most  able  and 
famous  French  writers  on  health  subjects  recently  remarked  in  an 
interview :  "  I  have  heard  that  you  Americans  are  a  people  lacking 
in  physical  health  and  power.  This  is  untrue.  No  people  on  earth 
are  stronger!  It  must  be  so,  for  you  drink  iced  water  and //zr.'  It 
would  kill  me,  or  anybody  else  but  an  American." 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  I93 

The  point  to  be  remembered  is  this :  The  normal  temperature  of 
the  stomach  is  not  far  from  99°,  while  the  temperature  of  iced  water 
is  probably  39°  or  40°.  Here,  then,  we  take  suddenly  into  that  centre 
of  the  body  and  of  the  nervous  system  (for  the  stomach  is  only  second 
to  the  brain  and  ganglia  as  a  nervous  centre)  an  ice-cold  fluid  60° 
colder  than  the  circulation  and  the  digesting  organ  into  whicfi  it  is 
so  unceremoniously  plunged  !  What  a  shock !  Is  it  to  be  wondered 
that  its  effect  is  often  fatal  ? — that  if  it  does  not  kill  at  once,  like  a 
bullet,  it  frequently  produces  dyspepsia,  and  other  causes  of  chronic 
ill  health  resulting  in  death  ? 

Cold  Tea. — The  mistake  that  most  people  make  in  preparing  tea  for 
a  cold  drink  is  in  letting  it  stand  too  long  on  the  tea  leaves — stand  until 
cold.  This  brings  out  all  the  bitter,  indigestible  qualities  of  the  tea 
leaf,  which  may  be  somewhat  disguised  by  the  lemon  and  sugar 
added,  but  remain  to  torment  the  drinker.  To  get  the  full  benefit  of 
good  iced  tea,  first  heat  the  proper  quantity  on  a  tin  plate,  or  any 
iron  plate ;  let  it  get  thoroughly  hot,  so  that  it  would  crumble  to  dust 
between  the  finger  and  thumb.  Then  scald  out  the  teapot  very  hot, 
using  an  earthen  pot,  which  is  the  only  teapot  that  has  no  black  de- 
posit left  on  it  from  other  tea-makings ;  add  to  this  from  the  kettle 
the  first  boiling  of  water  out  of  the  freshly-filled  kettle,  and  let  it  draw 
five  minutes  and  no  more.  Pour  off  to  cool,  and  when  entirely  cold, 
add  the  same  quantity  of  good  milk  to  your  pitcher.  You  will  have 
not  only  a  refreshing  but  a  nourishing  drink.  Of  course,  if  lemon  is 
called  for,  you  omit  the  milk. 

To  Purify  Rooms  after  Sickness. — Wash  the  furniture,  wood- 
work, floor,  and  walls  (scraping  off  the  paper)  with  the  carbolic  solu- 
tion and  soap.  Then  shut  up  tightly,  and  burn  in  it  a  pound  of 
sulphur  for  every  hundred  cubic  feet  of  space  it  contains,  and  allow 
the  fumes  to  remain  in  the  closed  room  for  twenty-four  hours. 
Lastly,  open  the  doors  and  windows  so  as  to  ventilate  freely  for  a 
week,  at  the  end  of  which  time  disinfection  may  generally  be  con- 
sidered complete. 

To  Make  Pepsin. — Cut  up  v(try  fine  half  a  dozen  pigs'  stomachs 
»3 


194  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

and  macerate  for  ten  or  twelve  hours  in  a  menstruum  composed  of 
one  part  of  muriatic  acid  and  thirty-two  parts  of  water;  decant  and 
macerate  a  second  time;  pour  the  two  products  together,  and  add 
common  salt  until  no  further  pepsin  is  formed.  The  pepsin  will 
float  on  the  top.  Collect  it  on  a  muslin  strainer  and  press  out 
the  adhering  moisture.  This  is  the  pepsin  so  much  valued  in  cases 
of  great  debility,  and  which  costs  so  much  at  the  druggist's.  A  test 
of  its  strength  can  be  made  by  mixing  a  small  quantity  with  milk 
and  suiiar,  and  determining  how  much  albumen  it  will  dissolve. 

A  powerful  antidote  to  strychnine  poison  is  found  in  chloral  hy- 
drate, which  is  given  in  very  large  doses  with  gratifying  success. 
Strychnia  itself  is  now  considered,  by  a  sort  of  medical  consensus,  to 
be  the  most  important  remedy  for  diphtheria. 

How  TO  Treat  a  Cold. — When  you  get  chilly  all  over  and  away 
into  your  bones,  and  begin  to  sniffle  and  almost  struggle  for  your 
breath,  just  begin  in  time  and  your  tribulations  need  not  last  very 
long.  Get  some  powdered  borax  and  snuff  the  dry  powder  up  your 
nostrils.  Get  your  camphor-bottle  and  smell  it  frequently ;  pour 
some  on  your  handkerchief,  and  wipe  your  nose  with  it  whenever 
needed.  Your  nose  will  not  get  sore,  and  you  will  soon  wonder 
what  has  become  of  your  cold.  Begin  this  treatment  in  the  forenoon 
and  keep  on  at  intervals  until  you  go  to  bed,  and  you  will  sleep  as 
well  as  ever  you  did. 

The  free  use  of  lemon-juice  and  sugar  will  always  relieve  a  cough. 

Sick  Stomach. — A  wine-glassful  of  water  drank  as  hot  as  it  can 
be  borne  will  frequently  arrest  a  very  distressing  vomiting,  but  it 
should  be  /to/,  not  warm.  Good  strong  vinegar  sipped  at  pleasure  is 
another  prompt  and  safe  remedy. 

The  TOMATO  is  a  powerful  aperient,  and  is  a  wonderfully  effective 
curative  agent  for  liver  and  kidney  affections.  It  is  also  a  thorough 
remedy  for  dyspepsia. 

Soda  for  Burns. — All  kinds  of  burns,  including  scalds  and  sun- 
burns, are  almost  immediately  relieved  by  the  application  of  a  solu- 
tion of  soda  to  the  burnt  surface.     It  must  be  remembered  that  dry 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  I95 

soda  will  not  do  unless  it  is  surrounded  with  a  cloth  moist  enough  to 
dissolve  it.  This  method  of  sprinkling  it  on  and  covering  it  with  a 
wet  cloth  is  often  the  very  best.  But  it  is  sufficient  to  wash  the 
wound  repeatedly  with  a  strong  solution.  It  would  be  well  to  keep 
a  bottle  of  it  always  on  hand,  made  so  strong  that  more  or  less  set- 
tles on  the  bottom.  This  is  what  is  called  a  saturated  solution,  and 
really  such  a  solution  as  this  is  formed  when  the  dry  soda  is  sprinkled 
on  and  covered  with  a  moistened  cloth.  It  is  thought  by  some  that 
the  pain  of  a  burn-is  caused  by  the  hardening  of  the  albumen  of  the 
flesh  which  presses  on  the  nerves,  and  that  the  soda  dissolves  the 
albumen  and  relieves  the  pressure.  Others  think  that  the  burn 
generates  an  acrid  acid  which  the  soda  neutralizes. 

Acid  Burns  Cured  by  Magnesia. — Two  French  students  who 
were  much  burned  about  the  face  by  the  explosion  of  a  retort  filled 
with  boiling  sulphuric  acid,  were,  at  once  taken  to  a  druggist,  who 
covered  their  faces  2mm.  thick  with  a  soft  paste  made  of  calcined 
magnesia  and  water.  In  a  few  seconds,  fissures  appeared  in  the  mag- 
nesian  mask,  and  a  new  layer  was  then  substituted.  The  patients 
were  thus  tended  for  five  hours,  after  which  the  one  hurt  the  least 
was  able  to  wash  his  face,  which  merely  showed  some  reddish  spots. 
The  other  had  his  magnesian  mask  renewed  during  twenty-four 
hours.  Suffering  acutely  at  first,  the  students  ceased  to  suffer  in  less 
than  a  quarter  of  an  hour.     Their  faces  retained  no  traces  of  burns. 

A  quick  cure  for  slight  burns  is  to  apply  a  layer  of  common  salt 
and  saturate  it  with  laudanum.  Hold  it  in  place  an  hour  or  so  by 
simple  bandage.  The  smarting  sensation  will  disappear  rapidly  and 
the  burn  get  well. 

Simple  Method  of  Removing  Insects  from  the  Ear. — Dr.  B.  F. 
Kingsley,  U.  S.  A.,  relates  a  number  of  cases  where  soldiers  sleeping 
on  the  plains  have  come  to  him  to  have  bugs  removed  from  their 
isars.  Accidentally  he  discovered  that  by  holding  a  lighted  candle 
near  the  ear,  the  insects  would  at  once  leave  the  cavity  and  come  forth. 
The  patient  should  be  in  the  dark  when  this  is  done. 

Nits  in  the  Hair. — The  London  Lancet  gives  the  two  following 
methods  of  removing  nits  from  the  hair: 


196  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

1.  Apply  spirits  of  wine  freely,  so  as  to  dissolve  the  glue  which 
attaches  the  nits  to  the  hair,  and  then  wash  them  away  with  soap  and 
water. 

2.  Apply  to  the  hair  rather  a  strong  decoction  of  larkspur  seeds 
(Delphinium  staphisagria).  This  will  kill  the  parasites  very  quickly. 
Wash  the  head  with  carbolic  soap,  after  two  or  three  days.  The  nits 
will  then  readily  come  away  by  brushing  and  combing. 

The  Night-Air  SuI'ERSTITIon. — Dr.  Felix  Oswald,  who  is  an 
authority  on  sanitary  matters,  says: 

"  Before  we  can  hope  to  fight  consumption  with  any  chance  of  suc- 
cess, we  have  to  get  rid  of  the  night-air  superstition.  Like  the  dread 
of  cold  water,  raw  fruit,  etc.,  it  is  founded  on  mistrust  of  our  instincts. 
It  is  probably  the  most  prolific  single  cause  of  impaired  health,  even 
among  the  civilized  nations  of  our  enlightened  age,  though  its  ab- 
surdity rivals  the  grossest  delusions  of  the  witchcraft  era.  The  sub- 
jection of  holy  reason  to  hearsays  could  hardly  go  further. 

"'Beware  of  the  night-wind;  be  sure  and  close  your  windows 
after  dark  ! '  In  other  words,  beware  of  God's  free  air;  be  sure  and 
fill  your  lungs  with  the  stagnant,  azotized  and  offensive  atmosphere 
of  your  bed-room.  In  other  words,  beware  of  the  rock  spring;  stick 
to  sewerage.  Is  night-air  injurious?  Is  there  a  single  tenable 
pretext  for  such  an  idea?  Since  the  day  of  creation  that  air  has  been 
breathed  with  impunity  by  millions  of  different  animals — tender,  deli- 
cate creatures,  some  of  them — fawns,  lambs,  and  young  birds. 

"  The  moist  air  of  the  tropical  forest  is  breathed  with  impunity  by 
our  next  relatives,  the  Anthropoid  apes — the  same  apes  that  soon 
perish  with  consumption  in  the  close  though  generally  well-warmed 
atmosphere  of  our  Northern  menageries.  Thousands  of  soldiers, 
hunters,  and  lumbermen  sleep  every  night  in  tents  and  open  sheds 
without  the  least  injurious  consequences;  men  in  the  last  stage  of 
consumption  have  recovered  by  adopting  a  semi-savage  mode  of  life, 
and  camping  out-doors  in  all  but  the  stormiest  nights.  Is  it  the 
draught  you  fear,  or  the  contrast  of  temperature?  Blacksmiths  and 
railroad  conductors  seem  to  thrive  under  such  influences.     Draught! 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  1 97 

Have  you  never  seen  boys  skating  in  the  teeth  of  a  snow  storm  at 
the  rate  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour  ?  '  They  counteract  the  effect  of 
the  cold  air  by  vigorous  exercise.'  Is  there  no  other  way  of  keeping 
warm  ?  Does  the  north  wind  damage  the  fine  lady  sitting  motion- 
less in  her  sleigh,  or  the  pilot  and  helmsman  of  a  storm-tossed  vessel? 
It  cannot  be  the  inclemency  of  the  open  air,  for  even  in  sweltering 
summer  nights  the  sweet  south  wind,  blessed  by  all  creatures  that 
draw  the  breath  of  human  life,  brings  no  relief  to  the  victim  of  acro- 
phobia. 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  families  who  have  freed  themselves  from 
the  curse  of  that  superstition  can  live  out-and-out  healthier  in  the 
heart  of  a  great  city  than  its  slaves  on  the  airiest  highlands  of  the 
Southern  Apennines." 

Advice  to  Dyspeptics. — Avoid  pork,  fat  meats,  grease,  gravies, 
pastries,  spices,  confectioneries,  tea,  coffee,  alcoholic  drinks,  beer, 
malt  liquors  of  all  kinds.  Let  your  food  be  plain,  simple,  wholesome 
— chiefly  fruits  and  vegetables.  Let  your  bread  be  made  of  un- 
bolted wheat-meal.  Take  your  meals  regularly ;  if  three,  let  the 
supper  be  very  sparing.  Eat  slowly,  lightly,  masticate  thoroughly. 
Beware  of  hot  food  and  drinks.  Avoid  luncheons  by  all  means. 
Exercise  freely  in  the  open  air;  never  sit  moping,  but  turn  your 
mind  entirely  from  your  disease  and  troubles.  Keep  regular  hours; 
rise  early,  exercise  half  an  hour  gently  before  breakfast.  Bathe  fre- 
quently; keep  the  skin  clean  and  the  pores  open.  Keep  the  feet 
dry ;  let  the  soles  of  your  shoes  be  thick,  that  no  dampness  may 
penetrate  them.  Wear  loose  fitting  garments,  especially  about  the 
region  of  the  lungs.  Banish  the  pipe,  quid,  and  snuff-box,  as  the 
plague,  forever.  Of  all  the  dyspepsia  breeders  and  promoters  nothing 
exceeds  the  use  of  the  "  Indian  weed."  Finally,  keep  a  conscience 
void  of  offence;  pray  God  to  forgive  your  past  sins  of  gluttony  and 
intemperance,  for  no  one  who  lives  temperately  as  he  should  will 
ever  be  troubled  with  dyspepsia. 

Alcohol  and  Dyspepsia. — Many  persons  are  under  the  impres- 
sion that  alcoholic  drinks  are  beneficial  in  dyspepsia,  but  the  truth  is 


198  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

that  alcohol  precipitates  the  pepsin  of  the  stomach  and  interferes 
with  digestion;  hence  dyspepsia  is  a  common  symptom  in  habitual 
drinkers. 

Table  Salt  an  Aperient. — Physicians  have  for  a  long  time 
known  that  common  table  salt  is  an  efficient  aperient  in  ordinary  cases 
of  constipation.  Each  morning  on  rising  a  tumblerful  of  water — 
cold,  to  prevent  nauseating — in  which  was  dissolved  a  teaspoonful  of 
table  salt,  should  be  taken.  This  simple  aperient  is  successful  in 
nearly  all  cases  of  constipation. 

A  GOOD  DISINFECTANT  is  made  by  dissolving  a  bushel  of  salt  in  a 
barrel  of  water,  and  with  the  salt-water  slack  a  barrel  of  lime,  which 
should  be  wet  enough  to  form  a  kind  of  paste.  If  used  freely  about 
cellars,  gutters,  and  the  like,  this  home-made  chloride  of  lime  is  an 
excellent  disinfectant. 

Coffee  is  a  most  convenient  and  effective  disinfecter.  Burn  it  in 
an  open  pan. 

The  juice  of  ripe  tomatoes  will  remove  the  stain  of  walnuts  from 
the  hands  without  injury  to  the  skin. 

One  of  the  most  important  things  to  be  considered  in  dress  is  the 
careful  covering  of  the  chest  and  back.  Exposing  the  lungs  by  in- 
adequate shielding  of  these  portions  of  the  body  from  cold  is  too 
generally  practised,  especially  by  ladies.  To  cover  the  chest  alone 
most  carefully  is  not  enough :  there  should  be  a  thick  covering  be- 
tween the  shoulders. 

For  mental  headache,  coarse  brown  paper  wet  with  strong  cider 
vinegar  will  often  prove  effective  and  soothing;  and  sometimes  to 
have  the  eyes  bathed  with  cool  water  is  a  relief  to  the  aching  head. 

The  best  remedy  for  a  sprained  ankle  or  wrist,  until  medical  aid 
arrives,  is  to  bathe  the  afflicted  member  in  arnica,  and  if  it  is  not  near 
at  hand,  use  a  strong  decoction  of  vinegar  and  wormwood.  A  flan- 
nel cloth  wrung  out  of  the  above  just  as  hot  as  the  patient  will  bear, 
and  bound  on  the  affected  part,  will  give  immediate  relief. 

A  safe  and  almost  sure  remedy  for  an  inflamed  eye  is  to  bathe 
the  afflicted  member  in  lukewarm  water,  into  which  a  small  quantity 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN   THE    HOME. 


199 


of  common  table  salt  has  been  dissolved.  Hold  the  eye  open  while 
bathing,  and  immediate  relief  will  be  experienced.  Bathing  the  eyes 
morning  and  night  with  cold  water  is  an  excellent  practice  for  those 
who  are  obliged  to  use  their  eyes  to  any  extent.  The  water  acts 
like  a  tonic,  and  strengthens  and  brightens  the  eye.  The  eyes 
should  be  kept  open  as  much  as  possible  during  the  process  of 
bathing  them. 

Early  Rising. — There  is  not  one  man  in  ten  thousand  who  can 
afford  to  do  without  seven  or  eight  hours'  sleep.  All  the  stuff  writ- 
ten about  great  men  who  sleep  only  three  or  four  hours  at  night  is 
apocryphal.  They  have  been  put  upon  such  small  allowance  oc- 
casionally, and  prospered  ;  but  no  man  ever  kept  healthy  in  body 
and  mind  for  a  number  of  years  with  less  than  seven  hours'  sleep. 
If  you  can  get  to  bed  early,  then  rise  early ;  if  you  cannot  go  to  bed 
until  late,  then  rise  late.  It  may  be  as  proper  for  some  men  to  rise 
at  eight  as  it  is  for  others  to  rise  at  five.  Let  the  rousing  bell  be  rung 
at  least  thirty  minutes  before  the  public  appearance.  Physicians  say 
that  a  sudden  jump  out  of  bed  gives  irregular  motion  to  the  pulse. 
It  takes  hours  to  get  over  a  sudden  rising. 

Half*a-dozen  onions  planted  in  the  cellar,  where  they  can  get  a 
little  light,  will  do  much  towards  absorbing  and  correcting  the  atmos- 
pheric impurities  that  are  so  apt  to  lurk  in  such  places. 

Preventive  Against  Sea-Sickness. — Let  your  last  day  on  shore 
be  a  day  of  perfect  rest;  no  shopping  or  farewell  calls  ;  let  your  body, 
which  is  likely  to  be  pretty  well  tired  by  previous  fatigue,  get 
thoroughly  rested.  At  least  twenty-four  hours  before  you  sail,  take 
as  strong  a  dose,  or  doses  if  necessary,  of  cathartic  medicine  as  you 
can  bear.  Eat  lighter  meals  than  usual  for  two  or  three  days  before 
sailing  and  abstain  from  beer.  Then,  if  the  malady  assail  you  on 
your  first  day  out,  take  twenty  or  thirty  grains  of  bromide  of  sodium, 
and  repeat  if  necessary. 

So  shall  you  find  the  ocean  voyage  the  pleasantest  part  of  your 
foreign  tour,  so  shall  you  make  your  trip  an  expensive  one  to  the 
steamship  in  the  way  of  board. 


200  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

Asthma  has  been  cured  by  sleeping  on  a  pillow  made  of 
"  wild  balsam,"  or,  as  many  people  call  it,  "  life  everlasting."  It 
grows  wild  in  most  places  in  the  country,  and  is  very  sweet, 
and  considered  by  some  an  excellent  thing  for  colds — made 
into  a  tea,  of  course.  The  remedy  is  so  simple  that  it  deserves  a 
ti-ial. 

A  FEW  hints  in  case  of  drowning  may  at  some  time  prove  of 
assistance  to  all  my  readers.  When  bodies  are  taken  out  of  the  water 
after  remaining  in  it  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  life  is  not  always 
extinct,  as  is  oftentimes  thought ;  but  from  want  of  proper  and  im- 
mediate treatment  the  persons  do  not  recover  consciousness.  When 
the  body  is  taken  from  the  water,  do  not  wait  to  carry  it  to  a  house, 
if  the  house  is  at  a  distance  ;  lay  the  person  on  the  ground  face  down- 
ward, and  with  the  centre  of  the  body  elevated  a  little,  so  as  to  allow 
the  water  taken  into  the  system  free  egress  through  the  mouth. 
Open  the  mouth  of  the  patient,  and  press  the  tongue  down  with  the 
finger,  as  it  may  have  become  swollen,  so  that  it  will  not  stop  the 
action  of  the  throat.  To  remove  the  wet  garments  is  the  next  step, 
and  if  blankets  or  other  wraps  are  not  at  hand,  take  your  own  wraps 
to  cover  the  patient.  If  he  shows  no  signs  of  life,  pat  and.  rub  the 
limbs,  and  roll  the  body  backwards  and  forwards,  slowly  and  gently; 
see  that  the  mouth  is  kept  open,  and  that  the  head  is  turned,  so  that 
the  water  that  is  in  the  ears  may  come  out.  After  working  at  the 
patient  in  this  way  for  twenty  minutes  or  a  half  hour,  taking  care  to 
slap  and  rub  the  body,  especially  the  palms  of  the  hands  and  feet, 
and  perceiving  no  symptoms  of  a  return  to  consciousness,  put  the 
ear  down  to  the  heart  and  listen  for  the  least  perceptible  flutter. 
The  patient  may  now  be  removed  to  the  nearest  house  or  shelter, 
and  haste  should  be  made  to  obtain  blankets,  and  a  warm  bath 
prepared.  As  soon  as  the  patient  shows  signs  of  conscious- 
ness, a  few  teaspoonfuls  of  whiskey  should  be  carefully  poured 
down  the  throat,  and  the  limbs  and  chest  rubbed  freely  with 
the  same.  A  warm  bath,  doctors  and  proper  nourishment  will  effect 
the  rest. 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  20I 

An  excellent  and  palatable  way  to  take  cod-liver  oil,  which  some- 
times produces  nausea,  is  to  take  it  in  tomato  catsup. 

A  GOOD  idea,  and  a  congenial  one  to  lovers  of  the  aesthetic,  is  to 
plant  sunflowers  in  the  garden  when  obliged  to  reside  in  a  malarial 
neighborhood.  Cranberries  for  malaria,  and  popcorn  for  nausea,  are 
also  recommended. 

An  important  item  in  housekeeping,  and  one  oftentimes  sadly 
neglected  by  over-zealous  housekeepers,  is  the  proper  airing  of  the 
beds.  Three  to  four  hours  is  the  shortest  time  which  the  clothing 
should  be  aired.  It  should  be  taken  from  the  beds,  well  shaken,  and 
each  piece  placed  on  a  separate  chair.  To  hurry  the  making  of  the 
beds  early  in  the  morning  is  a  false  idea  of  neatness. 

A  TEASPOONFUL  of  ammonia  in  the  water  in  which  you  wash  removes 
all  the  unpleasant  effects  of  perspiration. 

Advice  with  Reasons. — Beware  of  salves,  beware  of  plasters,  be- 
ware of  eye-waters,  beware  of  washes  refining  the  skin,  beware  of 
toilet  powders,  and  be  careful  in  the  use  of  scented  soaps.  Why? 
Salves  make  and  keep  the  skin  sore,  plasters  prevent  wounds  from 
healing,  eye-waters  do  often  more  injury  than  good,  most  hair-dyes 
produce  sore  eyes,  beautifying  washes  are  often  poisonous,  ditto 
toilet  powders,  while  scented  soaps  are  usually  too  sharp  with  free 
alkali. 

The  best  remedy  in  ordinary  hiccoughs  is  about  twenty-five  grains 
of  common  table  salt  placed  in  the  mouth  and  swallowed  with  a  sip 
of  water. 

When  the  finger  or  hand  is  badly  cut,  and  when  plaster  is  out  of 
reach,  a  good  substitute  is  brown  paper,  or  black  cobweb.  W^hen 
plaster  has  been  obtained,  press  the  cut  together  firmly  with  the 
fingers,  and  sponge  with  a  soft  rag  and  tepid  water ;  then  apply  the 
plaster,  which  should  be  cut  in  narrow  pieces  about  the  sixth  of  an 
inch  wide,  and  place  in  diagonal  lines  over  the  wound. 

Sulphur  used  as  a  gargle  is  said  to  be  a  sure  cure  for  diphtheria. 
This  disease  is  only  an  accumulation  of  fungus  in  the  throat,  and  sul- 
phur is  a  specific  for  every  species  of  fungus.     If  the  patient  can- 


202  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

not  gargle,  put  the  sulphur  on  a  live  coal  and  let  it  burn   under  his 
nose. 

Sleep. — Sleep  will  do  much  to  cure  irritability  of  temper,  peevish- 
ness and  uneasiness.  It  will  build  up  and  make  strong  a  weary  body. 
It  will  do  much  to  cure  dyspepsia,  particularly  that  variety  known  as 
nervous  dyspepsia.  It  will  relieve  the  languor  and  prostration  felt 
by  consumptives.  It  will  cure  hypochondria.  It  will  cure  the  head- 
ache. It  will  cure  neuralgia.  It  will  cure  a  broken  spirit.  It  will 
cure  sorrow.  Indeed,  we  might  make  a  long  list  of  nervous  maladies 
that  sleep  will  cure. 

To  persons  afflicted  with  cold  feet  this  remedy  is  offered.  Before 
retiring,  dip  the  feet  in  cold  water  for  a  brief  period,  often  just  to  im- 
merse them,  and  then  rub  them  thoroughly  with  a  coarse  Russian 
towel  or  a  pair  of  hair  flesh-gloves.  Disagreeable  as  this  plan  is,  it  is 
often  very  effective  and  conducive  to  both  health  and  comfort. 

Carbolic  Acid  as  a  Disinfectant. — Dr.  G.  M.  Sternberg,  of  the 
United  States  army,  in  a  report  to  the  National  Board  of  Health, 
gives  these  results  of  his  experiments  on  the  value  of  disinfectants. 
Carbolic  acid  he  finds  of  little  value.  He  says  that  "the  popular  idea 
that  an  odor  of  carbolic  aCid  in  the  sick-room,  or  in  a  foul  privy,  is 
evidence  that  the  place  is  disinfected,  is  entirely  fallacious,  and  in  fact 
the  use  of  this  agent  as  a  volatile  disinfectant  is  impracticable,  be- 
cause of  the  expense  of  the  pure  acid,  and  the  enormous  quantity 
required  to  produce  the  desired  result." 

To  have  Perfect  Ventilation. — Open  your  windows,  pull  up 
your  window  blinds,  turn  up  your  mattresses  and  bed-clothes,  and 
every  morning  let  the  products  of  the  night  be  swept  out  by  the 
incoming  current  of  fresh  air.  Then,  all  through  the  day,  remember 
to  have  a  small  chink  open  at  the  top  of  your  windows ;  or,  better 
still,  raise  the  lower  sash,  close  the  opening  beneath  with  a  piece  of 
wood  fitting  closely,  and  so  the  air  will  enter  at  the  junction  of  the 
sashes  and  pass  upwards  without  draught.  The  secret  of  ventilation 
without  draught  is  a  little  and  constajiily.  Once  permit  the  air  to 
become  close  and  stuffy,  and  the  moment  you  endeavor  to  remedy 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  2O3 

this  result  of  carelessness  a  cold  draught  will  rush  in,  and  the  fear  of 
injury  will  prompt  you  to  stop  it.  The  mere  fact  of  living  in  a  close 
atmosphere  begets  a  shivery,  susceptible  condition  of  body  which  is 
intolerant  of  the  slightest  sensation  of  chill.  If  you  accustom  your- 
self and  your  children  to  fresh  air  you  become  robust ;  your  lungs 
play  freely,  the  vital  heat  is  sustained,  and  even  a  draught  becomes 
exhilarating. 

Household  Dirt. — A  most  subtle  enemy  to  health,  whether  at 
home  or  at  the  seaside,  is  to  be  found  in  the  oftentimes  cherished 
presence  of  what  may  be  comprehensively  called  household  dirt. 
The  dirt  of  an  ordinary  house,  the  dirt  which  may  be  wiped  from 
the  walls,  swept  off  the  furniture  and  beaten  out  of  the  carpets,  would 
be  sufficient,  if  it  were  powdered  in  the  form  of  dust  over  the  patients 
in  the  surgical  wards  of  a  great  hospital,  to  bring  all  their  wounds 
into  a  condition  which  would  jeopardize  life.  It  cannot  be  supposed 
that  such  dirt  is  innocuous  when  it  is  breathed  or  swallowed,  and  it 
certainly  possesses  the  property  of  retaining  for  long  periods  the  con- 
tagious matter  given  off  by  various  diseases.  Instances  without 
number  are  on  record  in  which  the  poison  of  scarlet  fever,  long 
dormant  in  a  dirty  house,  has  been  roused  into  activity  by  some 
probably  imperfect  or  bad  attempts  at  cleansing.  The  preservation 
of  health  is  not  a  mere  mechanical  question  of  the  perfection  of  cer- 
tain traps  to  drains,  but  depends  upon  the  intelligent  avoidance  of 
the  causes  by  which  disease  is  liable  to  be  produced. 

Ventilation  of  Cellars. — Housekeepers  have  to  deal  constantly 
with  the  question  of  health  in  their  homes,  and  as  the  condition  of 
cellars  has  much  to  do  with  good  health,  the  following  article  on  their 
ventilation,  which  is  by  Major  John  P.  Hawkins,  of  the  United  States 
army,  is  reproduced  in  these  pages : 

"  The  frequent  and  great  losses  at  posts  of  vegetables  during  winter, 
and  of  meats  during  summer,  that  are  stored  in  cellars,  make  it  ad- 
visable that  some  suggestions  should  be  made  on  the  subject  of  cellar 
ventilation.  Damage  to  stores  in  cellars  is  generally  caused  by  heat, 
moisture  and  light,  or  by  some  one  of  these.     Proper  ventilation  will 


204  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

remove  heat  and  moisture ;  light  is  easily  excluded,  and  ventilating 
appliances  should  be  so  constructed  as  not  to  admit  it.  In  any 
arrangement  for  ventilation  the  following  principles  should  be  borne 
in  mind : 

"  Cold  air  is  heavier  than  warm  air ;  cold  air  has  less  capacity  for 
moisture  than  warm  air,  and  therefore  at  the  period  of  its  greatest 
cold  it  has  its  least  capacity  for  moisture,  and  as  a  corollary  of  this, 
as  it  becomes  warmer  its  capacity  for  moisture  increases.  When  the 
ventilation  of  a  cellar  is  not  influenced  by  the  wind,  the  outer  air,  if 
colder  than  the  cellar  air,  will  descend  into  the  cellar  by  its  own 
weight,  and  force  the  warm  air  therein  upward  and  out  of  the  cellar, 
and  as  this  air  becomes  warmer  it  will  absorb  moisture,  and  in  turn 
be  forced  upward  and  out,  carrying  with  it  moisture  and  impurities, 
and  this  process  continued  long  enough  would  bring  the  outer  air 
and  the  cellar  air  into  the  same  thermal  and  hygrometric  conditions. 
When  the  outer  air  is  warmer  than  the  air  of  the  cellar,  and  ventila- 
tion is  desired  to  remove  moisture  or  impure  air,  advantage  should 
be  taken  of  a  dry  wind  from  a  favorable  direction,  and  having  in  mind 
that  the  colder  the  air  the  less  its  capacity  for  moisture,  and  as  in  hot 
weather  it  is  generally  the  coldest  about  3  or  4  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
it  would  follow  that  about  these  hours  would  be  a  favorable  time  for 
ventilating  a  cellar  during  the  warm  season.  Although  simple  op- 
posite openings  in  the  upper  part  of  the  cellar  walls  might  be  suffi- 
cient for  ventilation  alone,  tubes  for  the  inflow  of  the  outer  air  (inlet 
tubes)  and  tubes  for  the  outflow  of  the  inner  air  (outlet  tubes),  with  a 
sufficient  number  of  elbows,  and  painted  black  on  the  inside,  are 
necessary  to  arrest  the  entrance  of  light.  The  inlet  tubes  should 
extend  to  the  bottom  of  the  cellar,  and  have  at  that  point  a 
tight-fitting  slide  or  cap  for  opening  or  closing  them.  To  obtain 
the  best  results  their  mouths  (the  outer  or  upper  end)  should  be 
presented  horizontally,  and  may  be  hopper-shaped,  and  be  arranged 
to  turn  horizontally  180°  so  as  to  be  turned  toward  the  wind;  they 
should  also  be  provided  with  a  door  for  security  against  a  driving 
rain. 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  20$ 

"  The  outlet  tubes  should  be  placed  at  the  top  of  the  cellar  wall, 
and  not  extend  beyond  its  inner  face.  The  outer  end  should  present 
its  mouth  upwards  (vertically),  in  order  that  the  escape  of  air  may  be 
interfered  with  as  little  as  possible  by  the  wind,  and  be  provided  with 
a  tight-fitting  cap.  To  obtain  the  full  effect  of  the  direct  force  of  the 
wind  for  the  inlet  tubes,  and  an  aspiratory  action  for  the  outlet  tubes, 
they  may  be  fitted  with  cowls,  with  vanes  so  arranged  that  the  inlet 
tubes  shall  always  be  presented  to  the  wind  and  the  outlet  tubes  be 
always  turned  from  the  wind ;  the  upper  rim  of  the  cowls  should 
project  a  little  so  as  to  lessen  the  chance  of  rain  getting  in,  and  if  it 
.  is  practicable  to  procure  a  cap  formed  thus,  it  should  be  provided  for 
the  outlet  tubes.  This  cap  will  cause  the  wind  from  any  direction  to 
exercise  an  aspiratory  or  suction  power  up  the  tubes,  and  will  pre- 
vent the  entrance  of  rain  or  snow.  The  longer  the  outlet  tubes  the 
better  this  action. 

"Air  communication  between  the  cellar  and  outside,  except  through 
these  tubes,  should  be  prevented  as  far  as  possible,  and  therefore  with 
the  adoption  of  this  method  of  ventilation,  the  cellar  windows  of  the 
usual  style  that  may  have  been  in  use  should  be  closed  up,  and  arti- 
ficial light  might  be  employed  whenever  the  cellar  is  visited. 

"The  number  of  tubes  to  be  used  will  depend  upon  the  size  of  the 
cellar  and  its  peculiarities,  but  it  is  suggested  that  they  be  not  less 
than  ten  inches  in  diameter.  The  action  for  which  they  are  designed 
may  be  stated  as  follows :  The  tubes  being  closed  with  their  caps  or 
slides,  the  inlet  tubes  will  be  filled  with  cold  air ;  then  when  the  caps  or 
slides  are  removed  from  them  and  from  the  outlet  tubes,  the  cold  and 
heavy  air  in  the  inlet  tubes  will  mov^e  down  and  out  into  the  cellar, 
over  the  cellar  floor  and  under  the  warm  air,  which  it  will  force  upward 
and  out  of  the  cellar  through  the  outlet  tubes  at  the  top,  and  similar 
action  will  take  place  when  it  is  necessary  to  ventilate  in  warm  weather 
by  taking  advantage  of  a  proper  direction  of  the  wind.  Tile  pipe  or 
galvanized  sheet-iron  would  be  a  good  material  for  these  tubes,  or 
they  could  be  made  of  boards  seamed  with  white  or  red  lead,  and 
secured  with  screws.     If  made  of  galvanized  iron  their  efficacy  would 


2o6  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

be  increased  by  encasing  them  tightly  with  boards.  This  would  pre- 
vent the  inlet  tubes  from  being  warmed  by  the  higher  temperature 
of  the  cellar,  and  the  outlet  tubes  from  being  cooled  by  the  lower 
outside  temperature,  and  if  an  outlet  tube  could  be  carried  inside  the 
cellar  up  to  and  through  the  roof,  its  efficacy  would  be  much  increased, 
and  when  practicable  a  chimney  flue  leading  from  the  cellar  to  the 
roof  may  be  utilized  as  an  outlet  tube.  An  approved  method  for  an 
inlet  tube,  to  preserve  a  uniform  temperature,  is  to  lay  a  pipe  six  feet 
below  the  surface  of  the  ground,  connecting  with  the  cellar  and  a 
point  about  sixty  feet  distant ;  at  this  latter  point  erect  a  ven- 
tilating shaft  for  the  inflow  of  the  outer  air,  which,  passing  through 
the  length  of  this  pipe,  will  be  warmed  in  winter  and  cooled  in 
summer. 

"  To  illustrate  the  efficacy  with  which  cold  air  acts  as  a  vehicle  for 
the  removal  of  moisture,  it  may  be  stated  approximately,  that  if  the 
outer  air  at  a  temperature  of  zero  Fahrenheit  be  admitted  to  a  cellar, 
and  raised  therein  to  a  temperature  of  60  degrees,  it  could  absorb 
and  carry  out  about  5  Troy  grains  of  moisture  per  cubic  foot,  and  if 
raised  to  lOO  degrees,  it  could  absorb  and  carry  out  about  19 
grains  per  cubic  foot." 

Cure  for  Earache. — Earache  may  be  produced  from  various 
causes.  Accumulation  of  wax  pressing  on  the  drum  of  the  ear; 
congestions  and  inflammation  of  the  inner  ear ;  the  presence  of  in- 
sects or  foreign  substances ;  catarrh  and  various  affections  of  the 
brain.  In  cases  of  earache  arising  from  an  accumulation  of  wax, 
syringe  the  ear  thoroughly  with  soap  and  water,  or  water  in  which  is 
dissolved  bi-carbonate  of  soda  or  borax,  in  the  proportion  of  a  tea- 
spoonful  to  a  quart  of  water.  At  least  a  quart  of  water  should  be 
used  and  the  operation  repeated  twice  a  day.  Always  have  the 
water  warm.  After  washing  out  the  ear  insert  a  pledget  of  lint  or 
cotton  soaked  in  glycerine ;  if  much  pain  exists  a  few  drops  of 
laudanum  may  be  added.  Never  use  a  pin  to  pick  the  ears  with. 
It  is  seldom  that  anything  is  necessary ;  when  it  is,  an  ear  spoon 
made  for  the  purpose,  or,  what  is  better,  a  bit  of  sponge  on  the  end 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME. 


207 


of  a  probe,  such  as  are  sold  in  drug  stores,  may  be  used.  When 
there  is  congestion  or  inflammation  there  is  likely  to  be  a  good  deal 
of  pain.  Relief  may  be  obtained  by  the  application  of  poultices  to 
the  ear,  or  rub  a  little  camphor  liniment  back  of  the  ear.  Steaming 
is  often  useful.  In  the  absence  of  an  instrument  for  that  purpose, 
this  may  be  done  by  heating  a  brick  very  hot,  enveloping  it  with 
flannel,  then  pouring  vinegar  upon  it  and  holding  it  to  the  ear. 
Relief  has  been  given  by  wetting  a  pledget  of  cotton  in  chloroform, 
putting  it  into  a  common  clay  p^pe,  inserting  the  stem  into  the  ear 
and  blowing  through  the  bowl.  The  vapor  of  the  chloroform  is  thus 
forced  into  the  ear. 

The  Prevention  of  Sunstroke. — To  avoid  sunstroke,  exercise  in 
excessively  hot  weather  should  be  very  moderate;  the  clothing 
should  be  thin  and  loose,  and  an  abundance  of  cold  water  should  be 
drunk.  Workmen  and  soldiers  should  understand  that  as  soon 
as  they  cease  to  perspire,  while  working  or  marching  in  the  hot 
sun,  they  are  in  danger  of  sunstroke,  and  they  should  immediately 
drink  water  freely  and  copiously  to  afford  matter  for  cutaneous 
transpiration,  and  also  keep  the  skin  and  clothing  wet  with  water- 
Impending  sunstroke  ;iiay  often  be  warded  off"  by  these  simple  meas- 
ures. Besides  the  cessation  of  perspiration,  the  pupils  are  apt  to  be 
contracted,  and  there  is  great  frequency  of  micturition.  If  there  is 
marked  exhaustion,  with  a  weak  pulse,  resulting  from  the  cold  water 
application,  stimulants  should  be  administered.  The  free  use  of  water, 
however,  both  externally  and  internally,  by  those  exposed  to  the 
direct  rays  of  the  sun,  is  the  best  protection  against  sunstroke,  and 
laborers  or  soldiers,  and  others  who  adopt  this  measure,  washing 
their  hands  and  faces,  as  well  as  drinking  copiously  of  water  every 
time  they  come  within  reach  of  it,  will  generally  enjoy  perfect  im- 
munity from  sunstroke.  Straw  hats  should  be  worn,  ventilated  at 
the  top,  and  the  crown  of  the  hat  filled  with  green  leaves  or  wet 
sponge.  It  is  better  to  wear  thin  flannel  shirts,  in  order  not  to  check 
perspiration.  We  may  expose  ourselves  for  a  long  time  in  the  hot 
sun,  and  work  or  sleep  in  a  heated  room,  and  enjoy  perfect  immunity 
from  sunstroke,  if  we  keep  our  skin  and  clothing  wet  with  water. 


2o8  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Unrecognized  Qualities  in  Charcoal. — Among  the  numerous 
and  varied  properties  possessed  by  charcoal  there  is  one — one,  too, 
of  the  most  wonderful — which  does  not  seem  to  be  adequately  recog- 
nized, probably  from  its  being  imperfectly  known  except  to  physicists. 
It  is  that  of  being  able  to  condense  and  store  away  in  its  pores  many 
times  its  own  bulk  of  certain  gaseous  bodies,  which  it  retains,  thus 
compressed  in  an  otherwise  unaltered  condition,  and  from  which  they 
can  be  withdrawn,  as  required,  as  from  a  reservoir.  It  is  this  enor- 
mous absorptive  power  that  renders  of  so  much  value  a  compara- 
tively slight  sprinkling  of  charcoal  over  dead  animal  matter  as  a  pre- 
ventive of  the  escape  of  the  odors  arising  from  decomposition.  A 
dead  dog  having  been  placed  in  a  box  in  the  warm  laboratory  of  an 
eminent  chemist,  and  covered  with  charcoal  to  the  depth  of  between 
two  and  three  inches,  could  not  be  discovered  to  have  emitted  any 
smell  during  several  months,  after  which  time  an  examination  showed 
that  nothing  of  the  animal  remained  but  the  bones  and  a  small  por- 
tion of  the  skin. 

Worth  Remembering. — Persons  travelling  by  railway  are  subject 
to  continued  annoyance  from  flying  cinders.  On  getting  into  the 
eyes  they  are  not  only  painful  for  the  mom^t,  but  are  often  the 
cause  of  long  suffering,  that  ends  in  total  loss  of  sight.  A  very 
simple  and  effective  cure  is  within  the  reach  of  every  one,  and  would 
prevent  much  suffering  and  expense  were  it  more  generally  known. 
It  is  simply  one  or  two  grains  of  flaxseed.  These  may  be  placed  in 
the  eye  without  injury  or  pain  to  that  delicate  organ,  and  shortly 
they  begin  to  swell  and  dissolve  a  glutinous  substance  that  covers 
the  ball  of  the  eye,  enveloping  any  foreign  substance  that  may  be  in 
it.  The  irritation  or  cutting  of  the  membrane  is  thus  prevented,  and 
the  annoyance  may  soon  be  washed  out.  A  dozen  of  these  grains 
stowed  away  in  the  vest  pocket  may  prove,  in  an  emergency,  worth 
their  number  in  gold  dollars.  A  horse  hair  twisted  into  a  loop  care- 
fully inserted  under  the  eyelid  will  remove  cinders. 

Cure  for  a  Felon. — The  cure  is  said  to  be  certain,  and  is  pub- 
lished at  the  particular  request  of  a  person  who  has  experienced  its 


THE    PPIYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  2O9 

success  for  a  great  number  of  years.  Take  a  piece  of  rock  salt  about 
'the  size  of  a  walnut  and  wrap  it  up  closely  in  a  green  cabbage  leaf, 
but,  if  not  to  be  had,  in  a  piece  of  brown  paper  well  moistened  with 
water;  lay  it  on  hot  embers  and  cover  it  up  as  if  to  roast  for  twenty 
minutes ;  take  it  up  and  powder  it  as  fine  as  possible ;  then  take  some 
hard  soap  and  mix  the  powdered  salt  with  it  so  as  to  make  a  salve. 
If  the  soap  should  contain  but  little  turpentine,  which  its  smell  will 
determine,  add  some  more,  but  if  it  smells  pretty  strongly  of  it,  none 
need  be  added.  Apply  the  salve  to  the  part  affected,  and  in  a  short 
time  it  will  totally  destroy  the  felon  and  remove  the  pain. 

Medical  Value  of  Asparagus. — A  medical  correspondent  of  an 
English  journal  says  that  the  advantages  of  asparagus  are  not  suffi- 
ciently appreciated  by  those  who  suffer  with  rheumatism  and  gout. 
Slight  cases  of  rheumatism  are  cured  in  a  few  days  by  feeding  on 
this  delicious 'esculent;  and  more  chronic  cases  are  much  relieved, 
especially  if  the  patient  avoids  all  acids,  whether  in  food  or  beverage. 
The  Jerusalem  artichoke  has  also  a  similar  effect  in  relieving  rheuma- 
tism. The  heads  may  be  eaten  in  the  usual  way,  but  tea  made  from 
the  leaves  of  the  stalk  and  taken  three  or  four  times  a  day  is  a  cer- 
tain remedy,  though  not  equally  agreeable. 

Sticking-Plaster. — An  excellent  sticking-plaster  for  fresh  cuts  or 
cracked  hands  is  made  of  three  pounds  of  rosin,  a  quarter  of  a 
pound  of  beeswax,  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  mutton  tallow.  When 
well  melted  and  dissolved  together,  remove  from  the  fire  and  keep 
stirring  till  it  is  about  as  cool  as  it  will  pour;  then  add  one  table- 
spoonful  of  spirits  of  turpentine ;  then  pour  the  whole  into  a  pail  of 
cold  water,  and  when  cool  enough  take  it  out  and  work  it  as  a  shoe- 
maker does  his  wax.  When  sufficiently  worked,  roll  it  out  in  small 
sticks.  This  is  equal  to  any  plaster  ever  bought.  Keep  the  hands 
greased,  to  prevent  it  from  sticking  to  them  while  working  it. 

Diphtheria. — Dissolve  one  tablespoonful  of  sulphur  in  a  glass  of 
cold  water ;  gargle  the  throat  six  or  eight  times  a  day.  Cook  salt 
pork  in  vinegar  and  bind  on  the  throat ;  when  the  paroxysms  come 
on  soak  the  hands  and  feet  in  just  as   hot  water  as  the  patient  will 


2IO  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

bear,  with  a  tablespoon  of  baking  soda  thrown  in.  Rubbing  the 
hmbs  and  body  will  assist  greatly  in  throwing  off  the  disease. 
The  simple  sulphur  remedy  is  very  effectual  in  common  sore  throat. 

Mustard  Plaster. — By  using  syrup  or  molasses  for  mustard 
plasters  they  will  keep  soft  and  flexible,  and  not  dry  up  and  become 
hard,  as  when  mixed  with  water.  A  thin  paper  or  fine  cloth  should 
come  between  the  plaster  and  the  skin.  The  strength  of  the  plaster 
is  varied  by  the  addition  of  more  or  less  flour. 

To  Stop  Bleeding  at  the  Nose. — A  French  surgeon  says  the 
simple  elevation  of  a  person's  arm  will  stop  bleeding  at  the  nose. 
He  explains  the  fact  physiologically,  and  declares  it  a  positive 
remedy.  It  is  certainly  easy  of  trial.  Or,  a  strong  solution  of  alum 
water,  snuffed  up  the  nostril,  will  cure  in  most  cases,  without  any- 
thing further. 

To  Cure  Colic. — For  the  violent  internal  agony 'termed  colic, 
take  a  teaspoonful  of  salt  in  a  pint  of  cold  water ;  drink  it  and  go  to 
bed.  It  is  one  of  the  speediest  remedies  known.  The  same  will  re- 
vive a  person  who  seems  almost  dead  from  a  heavy  fall. 

Cure  for  Hoarseness. — Take  the  whites  of  two  eggs  and  beat 
them  with  two  teaspoonfuls  of  white  sugar,  grate  in  a  little  nutmeg, 
then  add  a  pint  of  lukewarm  water ;  stir  well,  drink  often,  and  it  will 
cure  the  most  obstinate  case  of  hoarseness  in  a  short  time. 

Gargle  for  Sore  Throat. — Take  one  teaspoonful  of  cayenne 
pepper,  one  teaspoonful  of  salt,  one  pint  of  water,  two  tablespoonfuls 
of  vinegar ;  sweeten  to  taste  with  honey  or  loaf  sugar.  Mix  to- 
gether and  bottle. 

An  excellent  way  to  cure  a  sore  throat  is  to  bind  the  neck  with  a 
towel  soaked  in  ice  or  very  cold  water,  and  then  outside  of  this  place 
a  dry  towel.  Wear  this  during  the  night,  and  in  the  morning  the 
throat  will  be  much  better. 

Hot  Lemonade  is  one  of  the  best  remedies  in  the  world  for  a  cold. 
It  acts  promptly  and  effectively,  and  has  no  unpleasant  effects.  One 
lemon  properly  squeezed,  cut  in  slices,  put  with  sugar  and  covered 
with  half  a  pint  of  boiling  water.     Drink  just  before  going  to  bed. 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  211 

and  do  not  expose  yourself  on  the  following  day.  This  remedy  will 
ward  off  an  attack  of  the  chills  and  fever  if  used  promptly. 

To  Prevent  Choking. — Break  an  egg  into  a  cup  and  give  it  to  the 
person  choking  to  swallow.  The  white  of  the  egg  seems  to  catch 
around  the  obstacle  and  remove  it.  If  one  egg  does  not  answer  the 
purpose  try  another.     The  white  is  all  that  is  necessary. 

To  Remove  Proud  Flesh. — Pulverize  loaf  sugar  very  fine  and 
apply  it  to  the  part  afflicted.  This  is  a  new  and  easy  remedy,  and  is 
said  to  remove  it  without  pain ;  or  burnt  alum  pulverized  and  applied 
is  an  old  and  reliable  remedy. 

Stings  and  Bites. — Carbonate  of  soda  wet  and  applied  externally 
to  the  bite  of  a  spider,  or  any  venomous  creature,  will  neutralize  the 
poisonous  effect  almost  instantly.  It  acts  like  a  charm  in  the  case 
of  snake  bite. 

Lean  Fresh  Meat  will  remove  the  pain  of  a  wasp-sting  almost 
instantly,  and  has  been  recommended  for  the  cure  of  rattlesnake- 
bites.     It  is  said  to  have  a  marked  benefit  in  cases  of  erysipelas. 

Common  Salt,  mixed  in  cold  water  (tolerably  strong),  and  used  as  a 
gargle  night  and  morning,  is  found  to  harden  the  throat  and  keep 
off  bronchial  attacks. 

How  TO  Remove  Stiffness  and  Aching  of  the  Limbs  after  a 
VERY  LONG  RiDE,  Walk,  Row,  OR  Day  ON  THE  IcE. — Sponge  all  over 
with  water,  as  hot  as  you  can  bear  it,  just  before  going  to  bed  ;  and 
if  you  have  had  any  bad  bruises,  use  plenty  of  hot  fomentations  with 
tincture  of  arnica,  in  the  proportion  of  one  part  of  arnica  to  twelve 
of  water.  Then  put  bright,  clear,  hot  cinders  into  a  warming-pan, 
and  upon  them,  just  before  proceeding  to  warm  the  bed,  throw  a 
large  handful  of  the  commonest,  coarsest  brown  sugar  you  can  get. 
Warm  the  bed  thoroughly  with  the  pan,  so  that  it  is  filled  with  the 
hot  steam  and  vapor  from  the  sugar;  slip  in  neatly  and  cleverly,  so 
as  to  allow  as  little  as  possible  of  the  steam  to  escape.  Get  some 
one  to  tuck  you  in  tight,  all  round,  go  to  sleep  warm  and  cosy  in 
your  sugar-vapor  bath,  and  the  chances  are  that  you  will  awake  next 
morning  light  and  limber,  without  an  ache  or  twinge. 


212  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

Swelled   Neck. — Wash  the  part  with  brine,  and  drink  it  also 
twice  a  day  until  cured. 

The  Lemon. — Few  people  know  the  value  of  lemon-juice.  A 
piece  of  lemon  bound  upon  a  corn  will  cure  it  in  a  few  days ;  it 
should  be  renewed  night  and  morning.  A  free  use  of  lemon- 
juice  and  sugar  will  always  relieve  a  cough.  Most  people  feel 
poorly  in  the  spring,  but  if  they  would  eat  a  lemon  before  breakfast 
every  day  for  a  week — with  or  without  sugar,  as  they  like — they 
would  find  it  better  than  any  medicine.  Lemon-juice  used  according 
to  this  recipe  will  sometimes  cure  consumption  :  Put  a  dozen  lemons 
into  cold  water  and  slowly  bring  to  a  Hoil ;  boil  slowly  until  the 
lemons  are  soft,  then  squeeze  until  all  the  juice  is  extracted;  add 
sugar  to  your  taste,  and  dri-nk.  In  this  way  use  one  dozen  lemons  a 
day.  If  they  cause  pain,  or  loosen  the  bowels  too  much,  lessen  the 
quanrtty,  and  use  only  five  or  six  a  day  until  you  are  better,  and 
then  begin  again  with  a  dozen  a  day.  After  using  five  or  six  dozen, 
the  patient  will  begin  to  gain  flesh  and  enjoy  food.  Hold  on  to  the 
lemons,  and  still  use  them  very  freely  for  several  weeks  more. 
Another  use  for  lemons  is  for  a  refreshing  drink  in  summer,  or  in 
sickness  at  any  time.  Prepare  as  directed  above,  and  add  water  and 
sugar.  But  in  order  to  have  this  kept  well,  after  boiling  the  lemons, 
squeeze  and  strain  carefully;  then  to  every  half-pint  of  juice  add  one 
pound  of  loaf  or  crushed  sugar,  boil  and  stir  a  few  minutes  more 
until  the  sugar  is  dissolved,  skim  carefully,  and  bottle.  You  will  get 
more  juice  from  the  lemons  by  boiling  them,  and  the  preparation 
keeps  better. 

Fasting  is  recommended  as  a  cure  for  rheumatism.  In  cases 
of  acute  articular  rheumatism  the  fasting  must  be  continued  from 
four  to  eight  days.  In  no  case  is  it  necessary  to  fast  more  than  ten 
days.  Patients  may  drink  freely  of  cold  water  or  lemonade  in 
moderate  quantities.  No  medicines  are  to  be  taken.  Less  positive 
results  are  obtained  in  cases  of  chronic  rheumatism  than  in  acute 
cases.  The  latter  form  of  rheumatism  is,  after  all,  only  a  phase  of 
indigestion,  and  is  cured  by  giving  complete  rest  to  all  the  viscera. 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  21 3 

Cure  for  Neuralgia. — Mix  an  egg  with  corn-meal,  or  any  coarse 
flour,  and  apply  the  poultice  to  the  face  or  parts  affected.  This  is  a 
good  remedy  for  toothache. 

In  these  days  of  neuralgia  and  sudden  colds  it  is  sensible  to  have 
some  means  of  relief  close  at  hand.  Make  two  or  three  little  bags 
of  cotton  cloth  and  fill  them  with  hops.  Then  when  you  need  them 
heat  just  as  hot  as  possible  even  to  the  extent  of  browning  the  cloth, 
and  apply  to*the  aching  member.  People  who  cannot  endure  the 
odor  of  the  old-time  remedy  of  hops  and  vinegar  do  not  object  to 
the  hops  alone.  The  dry  hop-bag  is  a  great  improvement  upon  wet 
cloths  of  any  kind. 

To  Relieve  Sciatica  and  Severe  Neuralgic  Pains. — Heat  a 
flat-iron  sufficiently  hot  to  vaporize  vinegar,  wrap  it  in  woollen  cloth 
moistened  with  vinegar,  and  apply  as  warm  as  can  be  borne  to  the 
painful  spot  two  or  three  times  a  day.  As  a  rule,  the  pain  disap- 
pears within  twenty-four  hours,  and  recovery  is  rapid. 

A  Physician  finds  a  preparation  of  oatmeal  and  beef-tea  useful  in 
giving  strength  to  weak  patients.  To  make  it,  take  two  tablespoon- 
fuls  of  fine  oatmeal  and  make  it  perfectly  smooth  in  two  spoonfuls 
of  cold  water ;  pour  into  this  a  pint  of  strong  beef-tea ;  boil  it  eight 
minutes ;  keep  stirring  all  the  time ;  it  should  be  very  smooth  ;  if 
lumpy  pass  through  a  sieve. 

In  a  room  heated  by  a  grate  fire,  and  in  fact  in  all  rooms  heated  by 
artificial  means,  a  glass  or  basin  full  of  water  will  absorb  the  impure 
air  arising  from  the  gas  in  the  coal,  and  keep  the  air  pure.  Birds  or 
fish  which  are  confined  in  stove-heated  rooms  often  die  from  the 
impure  air,  and  flowers  and  plants  also. 

A  Certain  Remedy  for  Corns. — Dissolve  four  pearl  buttons  in 
the  juice  of  one  lemon.  Add  a  little  water,  put  in  a  bottle,  shake 
well,  and  use  night  and  morning.  After  a  few  days  the  mixture  will 
have  to  be  renewed.     If  persistently  used,  it  will  destroy  corns. 

Catarrh  Remedy. — Take  a  pint  of  soft  water,  and  put  in  a  table- 
spoonful  of  fine  salt — as  much  salt  may  be  used  as  will  dissolve  well. 
Take  two  teaspoonfuls  before  going  to  bed. 


214  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

To  Remove  Warts. — Tincture  of  cantharides,  with  some  drops  of 
tincture  of  iodine ;  apply  to  warts  with  a  small  brush  or  little  stick 
three  or  four  times  a.day.     In  a  few  days  the  warts  will  disappear. 

Cautions  in  Visiting  the  Sick. — Do  not  visit  the  sick  when  you 
are  fatigued,  or  when  in  a  state  of  perspiration,  or  when  the  stomach 
is  empty,  for,  in  such  conditions,  you  are  liable  to  take  the  infection. 

To  Disguise  Castor-Oil. — Rub  two  drops  of  oil  of  cinnamon 
with  an  ounce  of  glycerine  and  an  ounce  of  castor-oil.  •Children  will 
take  without  hesitation. 

Coughing  can  be  stopped  by  pressing  on  the  nerves  of  the  lip  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  nose.  A  pressure  there  may  prevent  a 
cough  when  it  is  beginning.  Sneezing  may  be  stopped  by  the  same 
mechanism.  Pressing,  also,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  ear,  right  in 
front  of  the  ear,  may  stop  coughing.  It  is  so  also  of  hiccough,  but 
much  less  so  than 'for  sneezing  or  coughing. 

Croup  can  be  quickly  cured  with  alum  and  sugar.  Shave  or  grate 
off  about  a  teaspoonful  of  alum,  then  mix  it  with  twice  its  quantity 
of  sugar  (to  make  it  palatable)  and  administer  as  promptly  as  pos- 
sible. If  it  is  shaved  off  instead  of  grated,  care  should  be  taken  to 
have  it  cut  in  small  particles. 

Flannel  should,  in  almost  all  instances,  be  worn  by  women  and 
children,  next  to  the  skin,  in  winter.  The  same  garment  should  not 
be  used  at  night  that  is  worn  during  the  day.  Cleanliness  demands 
a  change,  and  comfort  would  be  increased  by  wearing  a  lighter  article 
at  night. 

To  make  a  mustard  plaster  that  will  draw  well,  but  not  blister, 
mix  with  the  white  of  an  egg  instead  of  water  or  vinegar. 

The  White  of  an  Egg  is  a  most  efficacious  remedy  for  burns. 
Seven  or  eight  successive  applications  of  this  substance  soothe  pain, 
and  effectually  exclude  the  air  from  the  burn. 

Opening  the  Eves  and  submerging  them  in  clean  salt-water  has 
been  found  beneficial  to  those  whose  eyesight  is  impaired  by  weak- 
ness or  soreness.  Bathing  the  eyes  in  salt-water  is  the  best  of  pre- 
scriptions for  strengthening  and  healing  them. 


THE    PHYSICIAN    IN    THE    HOME.  2I5 

Chloride  of  Lime  is  essential  to  the  purification  of  all  sick-rooms. 
It  keeps  the  atmosphere  healthy,  even  in  the  most  terrible  epidemic 
diseases. 

It  is  a  Mistake  to  load  a  weak  stomach  with  water  on  the  theory 
that  it  is  a  tonic.  Water  should  be  taken  only  as  it  is  desired  to 
quench  thirst. 

The  Leaves  of  Geranium  are  an  excellent  application  for  cuts, 
when  the  skin  is  rubbed  off,  and  other  wounds  of  the  same  kind. 
One  or  two  leaves  must  be  bruised  and  applied  on  linen  to  the  part, 
and  the  wound  will  become  cicatrized  in  a  very  short  time. 

Two  Teaspoonfuls  of  finely-powdered  charcoal  taken  in  a  half- 
tumbler  of  water  will  often  give  relief  to  the  sick  headache,  when 
caused,  as  in  most  cases  it  is,  by  a  superabundance  of  acid  on  the 
stomach. 

In  Smallpox  the  pits  can  be  entirely  prevented  by  covering  the 
pustules  as  fast  as  they  brftak  with  a  coating  of  collodion — a  liquid 
cuticle  sold  by  all  druggists. 

When  a  person  is  overheated  and  exhausted,  both  the  hands  and 
feet  should  be  bathed  in  cold  water,  and  something  warm  should  be 
taken  at  once — hot  lemonade,  ginger  water,  or  something  of  this 
kind.  m 


ECONOMY  IN  THE  HOME. 

"A  penny  saved  is  two  pence  clear, 
A  pin  a  day's  a  groat  a  year." 

•OMESTIC  ECONOMY  ought  to  rank  as  one  of  the  fine 
arts.  It  is  a  duty  which  everybody  preaches,  but  very 
few  know  how  to  practise.  There  is  stinginess  in 
thousands  of  homes,  but  true  economy  and  good  man- 
agement in  very  few.  There  are  thousands  of  house- 
keepers who  mistake  meanness  for  economy,  and  there  are  thousands 
more  who  want  to  be  economical  and  don't  know  how.  What  they 
save  in  one  thing  they  waste  in  another,  so  that  their  efforts  to  re- 
duce their  household  expenses  are  like  pouring  water  into  a  bucket 
that  has  a  hole  in  the  bottom.  What  is  put  in  at  one  end  runs  out 
at  the  other.  The  dollar  saved  in  a  carpet  is  spent  upon  some  frail 
mantel  ornament  whi'ch  is  broken  the  first  week.  What  is  saved  in 
the  gown  is  lost  in  the  bonnet,  and  people  will  go  without  a  new 
pair  of  shoes  which  they  need  to  buy  a  new  ribbon  which  they  don't 
need.  There  are  men  who  will  walk  two  miles  to  save  a  five-cent 
car  fare  and  spend  the  five  cents  on  the  way  in  a  vile  cigar  made  of 
cabbage  leaf,  or  a  glass  of  froth  which  makes  them  hiccough  for  the  rest 
of  the  journey.  There  are  women  who  will  go  slipshod  with  their 
heels  out  of  their  stockings  all  the  week  in  order  to  astonish  their 
neighbors  by  some  piece  of  finery  on  the  Sunday.  '  There  are  families 
that  are  half  starved  during  the  week  in  order  to  eat  too  much  at 
Sunday's  dinner.  There  are  mothers  who  will  even  sacrifice  their 
children's  health  to  what  they  call  economy,  and  have  to  pay  ten 
dollars  to  a  doctor  because  they  would  not  pay  for  nourishing  food 

in  sufficient  quantity.     It  was  said  of  some  highwayman  when  he  died 
(216) 


ECONOMY    IN    THE    HOME,  217 

that  after  all  he  was  not  a  bad  fellow,  for  if  he  stole  from  one  man 
he  assisted  another,  and  while  his  left  hand  was  in  somebody  else's 
pocket  his  right  hand  was  often  relieving  distress  with  the  money 
thus  obtained.  Domestic  economy  is  practised  in  much  the  same 
way.  What  the  man  saves  by  short  commons  of  beer  or  whiskey 
he  spends  in  an  extra  allowance  of  tobacco.  What  the  good  wife 
saves  by  altering  an  old  dress  she  invests  in  kid  gloves  or  a  feather. 
She  will  talk  freely  of  how  long  she  has  worn  the  dress,  but  be  mod- 
estly silent  about  the  money  she  has  wasted  upon  other  things.  She 
will  give  her  children  molasses  instead  of  butter  to  economize,  while 
she  allows  them  to  waste  bread  and  meat  as  if  they  cost  nothing. 
She  will  scold  her  little  girl  for  buying  candy  while  she  has  her  own 
mouth  full  of  ice-cream.  So  that  while  she  thinks  she  is  a  wonderful 
manager  she  is  often  only  "penny  wise  and  pound  foolish,"  and  spends 
a  dollar  where  she  saves  a  cent. 

All  of  which  is  very  human  but  very  unwise,  and  perhaps  the  first 
step  toward  learning  true  economy  is  taken  when  one  begins  to  under- 
stand what  false  economy  is.  There  are  young  men  in  the  stores 
of  large  cities  whose  parents  in  the  country  have  tried  to  teach  them 
economy  and  who  really  desire  to  practise  it.  But  while  they  stint 
themselves  in  necessaries,  such  as  proper  food,  they  spend  money 
foolishly  upon  mere  luxuries  which  do  them  no  good.  Such  young 
men  never  prosper,  because  at  the  end  of  each  year  they  have  always 
spent  more  tlian  they  have  made,  and  yet  very  often  their  pinched 
and  hungry  looks  show  that  they  have  not  had  comforts  enough. 
They  should  have  smoked  fewer  cigars  and  gone  oftener  to  the  sea- 
bath.  They  should  have  spent  less  upon  new  ties  and  more  upon 
flannels.  They  should  have  drunk  less  lager  beer  and  more  beef-tea. 
They  should  not  have  cheated  their  boarding-house  or  the  washer- 
woman to  pay  for  tickets  to  the  theatre,  however  innocent  that  amuse- 
ment may  be  for  those  who  can  afford  it. 

Economy  is  by  no  means  an  easy  habit  to  acquire,  especially  for 
persons  of  a  generous  disposition.  It  is  very  hard  to  have  to  count 
every  half-dollar  one  spends,  but  at  the  same  time  it  is  as  much  a 


2i8  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

duty  to  provide  for  "  the  rainy  day  "  of  old  age  or  adversity  as  it  is 
to  get  fuel  and  warm  clothing  for  the  winter.  Yet  a  large  proportion 
of  men  and  women  when  they  die  do  not  leave  enough  to  bury  them, 
and  the  number  of  charities  for  the  relief  of  the  aged  of  both  sexes 
clearly  shows  how  many  thousands  of  persons  who  are  too  infirm  to 
work  for  their  daily  bread  are  dependent  upon  others  for  the  miser- 
able pittance  that  keeps  body  and  soul  together.  It  ought  not  to  be 
so.  Every  child  should  be  taught,  and  every  man  and  woman  should 
have  learned,  the  honorable  pride  which  shrinks  from  the  thought 
of  ever  becoming  dependent  upon  the  charity  of  others.  All  that  is 
needed  is  the  habit  of  saving  a  little  week  by  week  and  of  never 
quite  living  up«to  our  income.  But  many  will  say:  "  My  income  is 
only  so  and  so.  How  can  I  possibly  save  ?"  Our  answer  is  :  "  You 
could  save  what  you  waste."  "  But  I  don't  waste  anything."  "  Yes, 
you  do ;  and  if  you  -are  saving  in  one  thing  you  are  wasteful  in 
another." 

Suppose,  for  instance,  you  waste  only  ten  cents  a  day  in  bread  or 
meat  that  you  allow  to  be  thrown  away,  or  in  candles  burned  unneces- 
sarily, or  in  any  other  item  of  household  expense :  you  would  say  to  the 
friend  who  told  you  that  you  could  as  well  save  that  ten  cents  a  day, 
that  it  amounted  to  nothing  in  the  total,  and  that  so  long  as  you  al- 
lowed no  reckless  extravagance  you  were  practising  as  much  economy 
as  a  liberal  housekeeper  ought,  unless  she  wished  to  set  an  example  of 
meanness.  But  you  forget — and  all  waste  in  the  home  is  the  result 
of  forgetting — that  if  you  take  care  of  the  pennies  the  pounds  will  take 
care  of  themselves.  You  wonder,  perhaps,  to  see  a  stone  hollowed 
out  beneath  a  waterfall.  One  day's  dripping  of  water  only  wetted 
the  stone,  and  a  year's  dripping  did  not  perceptibly  hollow  it,  but  as 
an  old  poet  remarked  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago :  "  The  drop 
of  water  hollows  the  stone,  not  by  force,  but  by  constantly  falling." 
So  it  is  with  economy.  Do  you  know  what  the  ten  cents  a  day, 
which  you  could  easily  save,  would  amount  to  at  the  end  of  fifty 
years,  when  it  would  do  so  much  good  to  your  children,  if  not  to 
yourself,  if  you  were  to  put  it  in  a  bank  at  6  per  cent,  interest  ?     It 


ECONOMY    IN    THE    HOME. 


219 


would  amount  to  ^9,564.  Here  is  a  table  that  shows  what  would  be 
the  result  at  the  end  of  fifty  years  of  saving  a  certain  sum  every  day 
and  putting  it  to  interest  every  day  at  the  rate  of  6  per  cent. : 


One  cent  saved  every  day  at  6  per  cent,  in  fifty  years  would 
Ten  cents  "  "  "  " 


Twenty  cents 

« 

« 

« 

« 

Thirty  cents 

« 

« 

« 

« 

Forty  cents 

« 

« 

« 

« 

Fifty  cents 

« 

<( 

« 

l< 

Sixty  cents 

(< 

(* 

« 

« 

Seventy  cents 

« 

« 

M 

« 

Eighty  cents 

<( 

t* 

(C 

« 

Ninety  cents 

« 

« 

« 

« 

One  dollar 

« 

« 

« 

(( 

Five  dollars 

« 

« 

« 

« 

Ten  dollars 

« 

« 

« 

« 

be    5950 

9.564 
19,008 
28,512 
38,016 
47.520 
57.024 
66,528 
76,032 
85.537 
95.041 
475.203 
950,406 


Of  course,  no  one  who  is  able  to  put  by  ten  dollars  or  five  dollars 
a  day  is  under  the  necessity  of  practising  domestic  economy,  but  the 
table  is  useful  as  showing  the  v^ast  increase  of  capital  and  interest  in 
a  course  of  years  from  the  one  cent,  which  every  one  could  put  by 
without  feeling  it.  Baron  Wilhelm  de  Rothschild,  of  Frankfort-on- 
the-Main,  one  of  the  famous  firm  of  bankers,  has  an  income  of  four 
cents  a  second.  Four  cents  is  not  much,  and  a  second  is  not  much, 
yet  four  cents  a  second  is  two  dollars  and  forty  cents  a  minute,  which 
is  one  hundred  and  forty-four  dollars  an  hour,  which  is  three  thousand 
four  hundred  and  fifty-six  dollars  a  day,  which  is  twenty-four  thousand 
one  hundred  and  ninety-two  dollars  a  week.  Go  on  multiplying 
and  you  will  become  giddy  at  the  amount  which  four  cents  a  second 
will  come  to  in  a  month,  a  year,  ten  years,  fifty  years.  But  there  are 
31,536,000  seconds  in  each  year.  Put  by  your  cents  and  you  will 
soon  have  saved  many  dollars. 

The  foundation  principle  of  economy  in  the  home,  therefore,  is  to 
be  saving  and  careful  in  little  things,  which  seem  nothing  in  them- 
selves, but  which  amount  to  a  great  deal  when  put  together  at  the 
end  of  a  given  time.     It  is  not  economy  to  buy  bad  things  because 


220  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

they  are  cheaper  than  good.  It  is  always  economical  to  keep  up 
one's  health.  Children  who  are  stinted  in  proper  food  cost  more  in 
the  long  run  than  those  who  are  kept  strong  and  well  by  generous 
diet.  But  generous  diet  does  not  mean  over-feeding.  Swill-milk  is 
dearer  than  pure  milk,  although  it  may  cost  only  half  as  much  a 
quart.  Poor  meat  is  dearer  than  good  meat,  although  it  may  cost 
only  half  as  much  a  pound.  A  good  housekeeper  will  soon  learn 
how  much  bread,  meat,  milk,  tea,  sugar  and  other  comforts  are  neces- 
sary for  the  household,  and  so  be  able  to  make  a  regular  estimate 
and  allow  so  much  money  a  week  for  living  and  no  more.  A  good 
housekeeper  should  keep  an  account  book,  entering  every  item,  and 
filing  every  receipted  bill.  Every  bill  should  be  examined  carefully, 
hcAvever  sure  one  may  be  of  the  butcher's,  baker's  and  grocer's  hon- 
esty, because  honesty  is  no  guarantee  against  occasional  mistakes  in 
arithmetic.  In  order  to  avoid  waste,  all  remainders  should  be  utilized 
as  much  as  possible.  This  is  how  the  French  poorer  classes  live  better 
than  those  of  other  countries.  They  make  soup  of  the  scraps  and 
bones  instead  of  throwing  them  away. 

In  clothing,  the  cheapest  goods  are  not  the  most  economical,  be- 
cause good  cloth  and  silk  and  cotton  will  last  so  much  longer  and 
wear  so  much  better  than  bad  that  the  difference  in  price  is  very  soon 
made  up.  Ill-fitting  clothes  are  always  dear  because  they  tear  and 
crease,  to  say  nothing  of  "  looks,"  which  ought  always  to  be  con- 
sidered. Yet  people  often  boast  of  having  saved  a  few  dollars  by 
buying  goods  of  an  inferior  quality  when  in  fact  they  lose  by  it,  be- 
cause they  will  want  two  suits  instead  of  one  during  the  winter  or  the 
summer.*^ 

Very  few  people  are  to  be  trusted  to  make  purchases,  and  those 
are  especially  not  to  be  trusted  who  think  themselves  great  hands  at 
making  bargains.  A  man  or  woman  goes  into  a  store  to  buy  one 
thing  and  sees  another  thing  which  is  offered  very  cheap.  The  idea 
of  making  a  good  bargain,  like  the  propensity  of  the  gambler  to  try 
his  luck,  is  too  strong  to  be  conquered.  The  article  they  want  to 
buy  and  which  they  need  is  bought,  and  with  it  something  which 


ECONOMY    IN    THE    HOME.  221 

they  do  not  want,  and  which  therefore  is  no  bargain  to  them,  how- 
ever cheap  in  itself.  On  this  false  notion  of  making  bargains  house- 
keepers will  often  buy  a  larger  supply  of  some  article  of  food  than 
they  want,  and  they  only  discover  their  mistake  when  they  have  to 
throw  away  what  is  spoiled  and  will  not  keep.  The  reduction  of  price 
which  induces  them  to  purchase  more  than  they  can  use  is  not  econ- 
omy, yet  many  people  think  that  by  buying  "  wholesale,"  as  they 
call  it,  they  will  make  a  great  saving,  instead  of  which  it  is  a  "whole- 
sale "  waste  and  loss  to  them.  Whenever  you  buy  anything  which 
you  have  no  use  for  because  it  is  cheap,  you  commit  an  extravagance. 
It  is '  best,  therefore,  before  you  enter  a  store  to  decide  beforehand 
precisely  what  you  are  going  to  buy  and  how  much  money  you  can 
afford  to  spend.  Summon  up  your  resolution,  and  when  you  have 
bought  the  article  you  came  for,  do  not  begin  pricing  everything  you 
see,  for  it  is  the  business  of  the  tradesman  to  persuade  you  to  pur- 
chase whatever  he  sees  you  take  a  fancy  to.  Remember  poor  Moses 
in  Goldsmith's  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  who  thought  he  had  made  a 
fine  bargain  for  his  father  when  he  exchanged  his  horse  for  a  parcel 
of  shagreen  spectacles,  and  beware  of  bargains  if  you  wish  to  practise 
economy. 


LIFE  AT  HOME. 

"Domestic  happiness,  thou  only  bliss 
Of  paradise  that  has  survived  the  fall !" — Cowper. 

"  The  first  sure  symptom  of  a  mind  in  health 
Is  rest  of  heart  and  pleasure  felt  at  home." — Young. 


^^^^#1  OW  little  do  people  think,  when  they  speak  of  a  home 
./M^^     as  happy,  or  the  contrary,  of  the  many  influences  and 
i^iw        circumstances   which  combine   to  make   it  so.      It  is 
mWE'^l  more  difficult  to  describe  a  happy  home  than  an  un- 

happy one,  because  while  one  single  obstacle  or  defect 
will  suffice  to  mar  the  perfection  of  any  home,  a  great  number  of 
advantages  and  good  points  may  fail  to  make  it  happy.  Every 
member  of  a  family  may  be  in  sound  physical  health  ;  there  may  be 
abundance  of  all  the  necessaries  and  even  comforts  of  life ;  the  prop- 
erty or  income  of  the  father  may  be  a  certain  one,  so  that  the  grim 
shadow  of  want  cannot  cause  apprehension  of  poverty  in  the  future, 
and  yet  with  all  these  ingredients  of  contentment  and  prosperity  the 
horn?  may  be  far  from  a  happy  one.  One  virtue  will  not  make  a 
perfect  or  consistent  character,  but  one  vice  will  mar  any  number  of 
virtues.  So  in  the  home,  one  disturbing  element  will  mar  the  har- 
mony of  the  whole.  Any  one  member  of  a  family  may  blight  the 
peace  and  happiness  of  the  entire  household. 

Take  the  case  of  an  ungovernable  temper.  Everybody  is  liable 
in  turn  to  be  the  unfortunate  occasion  or  victim  of  it.  The  fire  of 
home  may  burn  ever  so  brightly  and  all  the  surroundings  be  ever  so 
cheerful  and  cosy,  and  as  one  peeps  in  and  sees  one  girl  at  the  piano 
and  another  at  her  knitting,  or  one  brother  reading  aloud  some  de- 
lightful story  or  poem  while  the  others  listen,  one  would  fancy  that 
(222) 


LIFE   AT    HOME.  223 

here  at  all  events  peace  and  good  will,  mutual  help  and  affection  had 
made  their  dwelling  upon  earth.  One,  perhaps,  is  telling  an  experi- 
ence which  has  happened  to  the  speaker  during  the  day,  and,  as  it 
is  comic  or  serious,  it  amuses  or  deeply  interests  the  whole  family 
circle.  But  while  the  tale  is  being  told  an  unsteady  footstep  is  heard 
outside  the  door.  A  father,  a  son,  a  brother,  as  the  case  may  be, 
bursts  into  the  room  with  flushed  face  and  angry  or  incoherent 
speech,  disclosing  too  plainly  that  drink  is  his  undoing,  and  the  peace 
and  happiness  of  the  little  circle  is  at  an  end  for  that  evening,  and 
perhaps  for  days  or  weeks  to  come.  The  drunkard  can  make  a 
wilderness  of  the  home  which  else  would  blossom  as  the  rose. 

But  drink  is  not  the  only  deadly  nightshade  that  can  poison  the 
life-blood  and  cloud  the  serenity  of  a  family.  One  act  of  dishonesty 
in  any  member  of  it  may  bow  down  a  father's  head  and  break  a 
mother's  heart,  and  make  innocent  sisters  ashamed  to  appear  among 
their  friends.  Perhaps  it  has  not  been  the  result  of  any  natural  ten- 
dency to  theft  or  forgery,  but  has  been  caused  by  desperate  losses  at 
the  secret  gaming-table.  Parents  and  sisters  may  never  have  had 
the  faintest  suspicion  that  anything  was  wrong  until  the  detective  ap- 
pears upon  the  scene  and  the  criminal  is  arrested  or  makes  his  escape. 
In  either  case,  the  happy  iiome  is  shattered  like  a  beautiful  picture  or 
fragile  vessel  by  a  madman's  hand. 

Sometimes  an  awful  and  mysterious  destiny  seems  to  come  upon 
a  home  when  its  happiness  is  at  the  flood.  What  fearful  tragedies 
have  resulted  from  an  unnoticed  or  lightly  regarded  brain  or  nervous 
trouble  in  some  member  of  a  family,  all  the  rest  of  whom  are  sane 
and  possessed  of  rationality,  balance  of  faculties  and  self-control ! 
What  shame  and  humiliation  may  a  morbidly  secretive,  untruthful  or 
thieving  child  bring  upon  a  home ! 

As  a  rule,  such  abnormal  tendencies  as  inveracity,  where  the  rest 
are  truthful,  envy,  where  the  rest  are  proud  of  one  another,  and  any 
other  evil  disposition  which  is  not  hereditary,  may  be  eradicated  and 
cured  bv  wise  and  kindly  treatment  if  taken  at  its  earliest  manifesta- 
tions.     But  too  many  parents  grieve   ovjr  a  child's  idiosyncrasies 


224  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

and  never  attempt  to  deal  with  them  until  it  is  too  late.  Example 
is  not  enough ;  precept  is  not  enough ;  the  axe  must  be  laid  to  the 
root  of  the  tree  of  evil  tendencies  as  soon  as  it  appears  above  the 
ground.  Few  human  beings  are  incurably  and  irreparably  bad  in 
their  childhood.  While  the  heart  and  affections  are  not  seared  and 
dead  to  good  influences,  the  vicious  child  can  be  cured. 

It  is,  nowever,  of  the  awful  fact  that  when  one  member  suffers  with 
some  tendency  or  infirmity  of  the  moral  nature,  all  the  members  suffer 
with  and  through  it,  that  I  here  remind  the  reader.  The  warnings 
of  legions  of  angels  would  not  be  too  much  for  such  reminders.  It 
is  the  selfish  feeling  that  a  brother  or  sister  or  child  must  be  left  to 
go  their  own  way  that  ends  in  such  wholesale  misery  as  we  see  in 
many  once  happy  homes. 

Of  a  really  happy  home  the  secret  spring  is  harmony ;  of  an  un- 
happy one,  discord.  The  example  of  parents  has  the  chief  influence 
upon  the  conduct  and  future  life  of  children.  Not  only  are  they  imi- 
tative and  observant,  but  from  the  dawn  of  thought  they  sit  in  silent 
judgment  on  the  ways  and  words  of  their  parents.  For  the  harmony 
which  makes  home  happy,  affection  and  justice  are  two  of  the  chief 
contributors. 

In  too  many  families  there  is  much  affection  but  little  justice. 
Partiality  and  favoritism  shown  by  father  or  mother  for  one  child  at 
the  cost  of  another  is  one  of  the  most  detestable  of  parental  crimes. 
With  mothers  there  are  undoubtedly  in  some  cases  physiological 
causes  for  loving  Jacob  more  than  Esau  from  their  birth.  Some 
mothers  take  a  dislike,  if  not  a  positive  antipathy,  for  one  particular 
child.  The  fact  is  recognized  by  all  pathologists,  although  different 
causes  are  assigned  for  it.  What  is  most  sad  to  look  upon  is  when 
the  mother  takes  a  prejudice  and  aversion  to  the  child  who  more  than 
the  others,  by  reason  of  its  weaker  constitution  or  defect  in  any  sense 
or  organ,  needs  her  tenderest  love  and  care.  There  is  a  Cinderella 
in  many  households.  The  kitchen  is  for  her;  the  drawing-room  for 
her  sisters,  who  think  themselves  her  "  betters."  The  worn  and 
shabby  dress.es  are  for  her ;  the  new  and  costly  ones  for  them.     She 


LIFE    AT    HOME.  22  5 

is  the  scullion  ;  they  are  the  fine  ladies.  Yet  her  heart  may  be  the 
diamond,  theirs  the  paste.  The  mother  has  caresses  for  the  others, 
unmerited  rebukes  for  her.  She  is  the  "  butt  "  of  every  jest,  the  slave 
of  every  petty  tyrant  in  the  home.  She  does  not  complain  of  this, 
perhaps,  but  her  heart  bleeds  inwardly  and  the  warm  fountain  of  her 
young  affections  is  checked  and  frozen  at  its  source. 

Fathers  are,  as  a  rule,  less  prone  than  mothers  to  this  unjust  dis- 
crimination. Sometimes  the  father  interposes  in  behalf  of  the  snubbed 
and  persecuted  child,  but  when  his  back  is  turned  her  tormentors 
treat  her  more  cruelly  than  ever  in  jealousy  of  his  kindly  intervention. 
The  pillow  of  the  child-martyr  is  wet  with  tears ;  no  bright  sunshine 
and  spontaneous  flow  of  happiness  make  flowers  spring  up  along  her 
path,  and  the  hardest  part  of  her  lot  is  the  reflection  that  the  unkind- 
ness  comes  from  the  parent  or  sister  or  brother  whom  she  loves  and 
longs  to  cling  to. 

Many  parents,  either  from  innate  narrowness  of  moral  perception 
or  from  those  servile  and  tyrannic  notions  of  parental  authority  and 
youthful  discipline  which  Christians  have  inherited  from  the  Jews, 
have  no  idea  that  they  commit  the  wrong  of  injustice  when  they  show 
partiality.  To  make  the  less  favored  child  the  fag  and  slave  of  the 
more  favored  and  more  selfish  one,  is  a  crime  against  one's  own  flesh 
and  blood  and  the  divine  rights  of  children.  They  are  not  machines; 
they  are  not  insensate  or  passive  recipients  of  unfair  treatment.  They 
know  when  they  are  unkindly  spoken  to  without  a  cause  and  unjustly 
punished  without  having  committed  an  adequate  offence,  and  every 
stripe  unjustly  laid  upon  the  child's  back  is  an  iron  nail  driven  into 
the  child's  heart,  and  an  indelible  mark  branded  upon  the  child's  con- 
sciousness and  memory.  No  after  petting  and  caressing  can  efface 
the  wrong,  remove  the  scar,  or  heal  the  wounded  spirit.  Years  upon 
years  may  roll  away ;  the  blow  may  never  be  repeated  ;  much  kind- 
ness may  be  subsequently  shown ;  father  and  boy  may  never  speak 
of  the  long  past  injustice;  the  father's  memory  may  have  forgotten  it, 
but  the  boy's  memory  forgets  it  never,  though  he  forgave  it  long  ago. 
The  memory  of  wrong  done  us  in  childhood  is  ineffaceable ;  it  is 
'5 


226  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

never  righted ;  it  is  never  obliterated.  For  one  instance  in  which  to 
spare  the  rod  is  to  spoil  the  child,  there  are  a  thousand  cases  in  which 
to  use  the  rod  unjustly  is  to  engrave  an  eternal  stigma  on  the  heart 
and  to  write  a  "minute"  in  the  note-book  of  the  memory  which  may 
be  legible  beyond  the  grave. 

Scarcely  less  hurtful  to  the  child's  nature  and  to  the  home  life  is 
petting  and  spoiling.  Better,  perhaps,  is  it  for  the  boy  or  girl  to  suffer 
from  neglect  than  pampering.  Better  to  be  punished  and  blamed  un- 
justly than  to  be  praised  and  rewarded  for  virtues  one  does  not  pos- 
sess and  good  deeds  one  has  not  done.  Both  treatments  are  alike 
unjust,  and  what  is  needed  in  the  home  is  justice. 

Many  children  who  are  naturally  generous  and  would  willingly 
"share  and  share  alike  "  the  little  windfalls  of  good  things  that  come 
to  them,  are  made  selfish  and  greedy  by  the  eagerness  which  is  created 
in  them  by  a  parent's  unfairness.  They  see  every  dainty,  every  treat, 
the  first  choice  in  every  selection  of  presents  and  the  tidbits  of  every 
delicacy,  given  to  the  mother's  or  the  father's  darling,  made  so,  per- 
haps, because  this  child  has  a  prettier  complexion,  a  fairer  skin,  more 
curly  hair  and  bolder  manners  than  the  others.  The  favorite  has 
more  pocket-money  given  him  or  her  to  spend;  has  greater  care  and 
cost  bestowed  upon  dress ;  is  made  more  of  before  company  who  ad- 
mire»it  to  please  the  foolish  parent.  Every  dispute  must  be  referred 
to  the  pet  chicken  of  the  little  brood.  At  table  the  best  seat,  the 
most  attention,  the  daintiest  plateful,  the  ripest  peach  or  pear.  The 
other  children  are  silent  that  the  pet  manikin  or  miss  may  talk.  This 
is  the  privileged  little  egotist  who  may  contradict  papa  and  tell 
mamma  that  he  knows  better  than  she  does.  If  a  servant  waits  upon 
this  pigmy  lord  in  his  own  conceit,  the  man  ol-  maid  is  treated  with 
disdain  and  insolence.  His  will  is  supreme  in  the  nursery  and  the 
kitchen.  If  he  is  thwarted  or  not  instantly  obeyed,  the  domestic  is 
rebuked  or  discharged  by  the  fond  mother,  who  wonders  how  any 
one  can  refuse  anything  to  so  precocious  a  child. 

The  little  brothers  and  sisters  see  all  this  and  submit  to  it,  but  they 
are  quite  conscious  of  the  injustice  that  prevails,  and  while  some  of 


LIFE    AT    HOME.  22/ 

them  may  be  of  that  self-abnegating  character  that  they  easily  con- 
vince themselves  that  there  must  be  some  superiority  of  worth  and 
power  in  the  one  so  idolized,  the  greater  number  of  children  feel  a 
just  resentment  and  adopt  the  policy  of  looking  out  for  their  own 
interests.  This  feeling,  that  unless  they  "  grab  "  for  their  share  they 
will  be  left  out  and  thrust  aside,  becomes  implanted  by  degrees  in  an 
unselfish  nature  and  works  a  great  deterioration  in  the  character. 
The  care  for  one's  self  soon  becomes  disregard  of  others.  The  gen- 
erous bosom  becomes  selfish  by  constant  contact  with  selfishness. 
If  the  character  were  fully  formed  it  might  not  be  so.  Noble  men 
and  women  can  associate  with  the  mean  and  churlish  without-becom- 
ing like  them.  But  in  the  unformed  mental  and  moral  habits  of  the 
child,  to  daily  witness  and  be  the  victim  of  injustice  and  selfishness, 
begets  a  spirit  of  retaliation  and  self-regard  which  would  not  other- 
wise exist. 

To  make  home  happy  it  must  be  a  miniature  republic  with  equal 
rights  for  all.  En\y  and  jealousy  sap  the  foundations  of  home  life. 
Among  the  boys  and  girls  there  must  be  a  chain  of  mutual  love,  an 
anxiety  for  each  other's  happiness  and  welfare,  a  generous  pride  in 
each  other's  success.  The  prize  at  school  gained  by  one  must  be  tlic 
cause  of  joy  to  all.  The  industry  of  one  must  excite  the  emulation, 
not  the  envy,  of  the  rest.  The  special  talent  of  one  must  be  respected 
by  all.  The  sensitive  spot  of  one  must  be  allowed  for  by  the  others. 
Every  member  of  the  home  circle  should  judge  charitably  of  an- 
other's faults,  knowing  how  much  need  he  has  of  a  like  charity  of 
judgment  himself 

We  sometimes  hear  people  say  that  they  don't  want  charity  from 
others,  so  long  as  they  get  justice.  But  in  our  thoughts  and  treat- 
ment of  each  other  charity  is  often  a  part  of  justice.  We  must  make 
allowances — that  is  charity.  Wc  must  bear  and  forbear — that  i.s 
charity.  We  must  not  be  exact  to  mark  what  is  done  amiss — that 
is  charity.  We  must  do  to  others  not  as  others  do  to  us — that  might 
be  only  justice.  But  we  must  do  to  them  as  we  would  that  they 
should  do  to   us — that   is   charity.     A  brother  or  a  sister   may  be 


228  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

quicker  in  apprehension  and  intelligence  than  we  are.  They  may- 
think  us  very  stupid  and  dull-witted,  and  they  may  tell  us  so.  It  is 
not  kind  of  them,  but  we  must  judge  charitably  of  their  impatience, 
remembering  how  trying  it  is  to  those  who  see  things  clearly  to  find 
themselves  unable  to  make  them  clear  to  others.  If  we  are  the  smart 
and  they  the  dull  ones,  let  us  remember  that  it  is  not  their  fault  or 
our  merit  that  made  the  difference  between  us.  It  is  conceited  and 
unjust  to  be  offended  with  others  for  what  they  cannot  help.  Per- 
haps there  is  some  quality  in  them  that  will  awake  to  action  some  day 
which  may  be  better  than  all  our  smartness. 

Among  the  members  of  the  same  family,  each  will  have  his  or  her 
peculiarities  in  mind  and  ways  as  in  bodily  appearance,  and  no  two 
will  be  exactly  alike.  One  will  care  most  for  this  study,  duty  or 
amusement,  and  another  for  that.  It  is  these  diversities  of  gifts  that 
make  up  the  combined  energy  of  the  world,  and  it  is  these  separate 
notes  which  blend  into  the  harmony  of  home.  If  all  the  brothers 
and  sisters  were  exactly  alike  in  disposition,  tastes,  thoughts  and 
aspirations,  the  home  would  have  but  one  note,  which  would  not  be 
harmony  but  sameness. 

It  contributes  greatly  to  this  harmony,  however,  that  there  should 
be  some  centre  to  which  all  the  diversities  which  I  have  mentioned 
should  converge.  Hence  the  harmonizing  effects  of  a  game  in  which 
all  can  join,  a  pursuit  in  which  all  take  an  interest,  a  book  which  all 
can  read  aloud  by  turns  and  talk  over  together.  In  the  morning 
parents  and  children  divide  and  each  goes  forth  or  engages  in  his  or 
her  separate  work.  But  in  the  evening  and  on  Sundays  the  family 
should  be  together  as  much  as  possible,  thus  keeping  warm  the  fires 
of  sympathy  and  affection.  When  brothers  and  sisters  are  parted  far 
from  each  other  in  after  life,  they  look  back  fondly  to  these  social 
gatherings  when  the  whole  family  were  together  and  there  was  no 
place  vacant.  It  is  this  that  makes  the  memory  of  old  birthdays  and 
Christmas  days  so  pleasant  as  time  goes  on.  It  is  not  for  the  par- 
ticular holiday  or  evening,  but  because  each  one  remembers  that  then 
the  family  were  all  assembled  together  and  enjoyed  life  at  home  in 
common. 


LIFE    AT    HOME.  22g 

To  make  such  memories  complete,  to  fill  the  canvas  with  an  ideal 
picture  of"  Life  at  Home,"  many  faces  must  be  limned,  many  colors 
blend  in  the  sunshine  of  love,  many  qualities  of  many  hearts  combine. 
The  father,  perhaps  long  dead,  must  be  there,  presiding  over  and 
revered  as  well  as  beloved  b}-  all.  Justice  as  well  as  mercy  must  be 
written  on  his  brow  and  remembered  in  his  acts.  The  mother  must 
be  there,  loving  her  children  with  an  equal  lov^e,  and  not  helping  her 
smooth-tongued  Jacob  to  supplant  his  rougher  but  more  honest 
brother  Esau.  Rebekah  was  a  bad  mother,  and  designing  mothers 
generally  are  not  good  for  much.  Too  often  they  implant  hatred 
between  brothers  by  their  unjust  favoritism,  where  there  would  other- 
wise be  brotherly  affection.  Sisters  and  daughters  must  be  there, 
one  loving  her  music,  another  painting,  another  flowers  and  garden- 
ing, another  languages  and  reading  best.  Out  of  their  several  tastes 
and  above  them  like  a  canopy  must  be  their  love  for  each  other,  which 
began  with  their  first  feelings  and  can  never  be  extinguished  by  time 
or  absence.  Brothers  must  be  there,  now  parted  in  the  race  of  life, 
but  who  played  and  worked  together  in  the  days  of  childhood,  and 
gave  each  his  contribution  to  life  at  home.  Perhaps,  an  aged  grand- 
father or  grandmother  is  remembered,  whose  gray  heads  were  crowns 
of  glory  in  the  sweet  home  picture.  And  the  baby  brother  or  sister 
may  be  there,  who  left  the  world  before  its  eyes  had  seen  it  so  as  to 
know  even  dimly  in  an  infant's  dream  where  and  what  it  was. 

"The  baby  wept; 
The  mother  took  it  from  the  nurse'.s  arms, 
And  hushed  its  fears,  and  soothed  its  vain  alarms, 
Anti  Vialiy  slept. 

"  Again  it  weeps. 
And  God  doth  take  it  from  the  mother's  arms, 
From  present  griefs,  and  future  unknown  harms, 
And  baby  sleeps." 

The  dead  brother  or  sister,  baby,  child,  or  youth,  is  sometimes  a  sad, 
sweet  memory  in  the  picture  of  Life  at  Home. 

The  cradle,  the  nursery,  the  library,  the  kitchen,  health  and  sick- 


230  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

ness,  pleasure  and  pain,  unions  and  partings,  tears  and  laughter, 
pastimes  and  studies,  hopes  and  aspirations,  talents  and  tempers,  for- 
bearance and  little  quarrels  which  are  so  easily  and  so  much  better 
avoided,  mornings  and  evenings,  school-days  and  holidays,  arts  and 
sciences,  hurts  and  healings,  likes  and  dislikes,  justice  and  injustice, 
charity  and  severity,  all  these  various  states,  scenes  and  ingredients 
make  up  the  picture  of  life  at  home.  Virtue  and  intelligence  make 
the  life  at  home  beautiful.  Love  is  the  guardian  angel  of  it.  Vice 
spoils  the  picture.  Cruelty,  injustice,  envy,  malice,  hatred,  lying, 
selfishness,  make  life  at  home  a  hell  instead  of  a  heaven,  and  old  men 
and  viromen  shake  their  heads  mournfully  as  they  tell  the  younger 
folks  around  them  that  theirs  was  not  a  happy  home.  Few  spectacles 
are  more  piteous  than  that  of  an  ill-treated  son  or  daughter  gazing 
on  the  dead  face  of  a  stern,  tyrannical  and  unjust  father  or  mother, 
and  thinking,  with  a  tear  and  sigh  of  remembered  affection  and  present 
forgiveness,  that  if  "poor  father"  or  "poor  mother"  had  only  dealt 
niore  justly  and  less  harshly  with  them,  this  or  that  calamity  would 
not  have  happened  and  the  old  life  at  home  might  have  been  other 
than  it  was.  For  love  sweetens  everything  and  makes  all  duty 
pleasant  and  all  hardships  bearable.  Without  it  the  palace  is  haunted 
with  demons;  with  it  the  hut  is  tenanted  by  angels. 

"  In  palaces  are  hearts  that  ask. 

In  discontent  and  pride, 
Why  life  is  such  a  dreary  task. 

And  all  good  things  denied ; 
And  hearts  in  poorest  huts  admire 

How  Love  has  to  their  aid 
(Love  that  not  ever  seems  to  tire) 

Such  rich  provision  made." 

f 
Whether  in  palace,  mansion,  or  cottage,  in  crowded  cities  amid  the 

incessant  roar  and  traffic  of  the  busy  world,  or  in  the  country  village, 
a  world  in  miniature,  whose  news  and  gossip  have  seemed  more  im- 
portant than  the  fate  of  empires,  home  life  is  the  life  that  has  been 
most  real  to  us,  whose  joys  have  been  the  dearest,  whose  sorrows  the 


LIFE    AT    HOME.  23 1 

keenest.  The  world  may  be  a  "  stage  and  all  the  men  and  women 
merely  players,"  but  home  life  is  a  reality  to  every  one  of  us,  mak- 
ing us  what  we  are  in  feeling  if  not  in  fortune.  In  other  chapters  of 
this  volume  the  separate  phases  and  component  parts  of  home  life 
are  considered.  Of  life  at  home  as  a  whole,  when  we  view  it  as  a 
picture  of  the  past,  the  memory  and  imagination  of  each  reader  must 
fill  up  the  scenes  and  circumstances.  Of  life  at  home  as  a  present 
reality  to  every  one,  if  it  be  a  happy  one,  full  of  flowers  and  sunshine, 
let  us  thank  Heaven  for  it  and  guard  it  well.  If  it  be  unhappy,  let 
each  of  us  honestly  consider  what  share  he  or  she  may  have  had  in 
making  it  so,  and  what  remedy  or  reformation  is  still  within  our  power 
so  that  it  may  be  life  at  home  indeed. 


'■  1:: 


HOUSEHOLD  ORN/MENT/TIOf^. 

"  Infinite  riches  in  a  little  room." 

^,  ARGE  BAGS  to  place  slippers  in  for  parties,  or  to  carry 
rubbers  or  waterproof  to  opera  or  theatre,  are  made 
of  gray,  brown,  or  stone  color,  with  a  monogram  em- 
broidered, braided,  or  outlined  in  the  centre. 

Antimacassars  are  now  called  chair  backs,  and  some 
of  the  new  ones  are  made  in  coarse  toweling  embroidered  and  cut  to 
the  shape  of  the  chair  like  a  hood,  so  that  they  can  be  slipped  over 
the  back. 

No  material  is  too  common  to  be  a  medium  for  ornamentation. 
If  you  have  any  old  worn-out  hassocks,  procure  some  green  or  crim- 
son baize,  and  on  this  work  at  intervals  ^.fleiir  de  lis  or  any  blossom, 
in  a  neutral  tint,  and  then  cover  the  old  hassock  with  the  same, 
putting  any  additional  stuffing  beneath  where  required. 

A  sheet  of  unbleached  cotton  can  be  easily  converted  into  a  quilt 
by  lining  and  binding  it  to  the  depth  of  six  inches  with  Turkey  red 
twill;  cover  the  sheeting  with  a  trellis,  work  in  green  crewel  wool, 
worked  in  outline,  the  diamonds  about  six  inches  long,  and  at  each 
insertion  work  also  in  outline  a  bunch  of  cherries.  It  will  both 
look  and  wash  well. 

Pincushions,  to  be  hung  on  gentlemen's  looking-glasses,  are 
made  of  swan-skin  in  the  shape  of  a  rabbit,  and  well  stuffed.  ]For  a 
lady's  toilet-table  there  are  two  new  shapes — one  like  a  gypsy  ket- 
tle, supported  on  three  sticks,  covered  with  ribbon,  the  kettle  being 
represented  by  a  round  satin  cushion,  bordered  with  ribbon  ruching; 
also  a  high  back  chair,  the  seat,  the  cushion,  which  lifts  up  and  forms 
(232) 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  233 

a  receptacle  for  studs,  earrings,  etc.  This  is  made  in  card-board,  and 
covered  with  pink  calico  and  muslin.    • 

Among  the  latest  notions  in  short  blinds  is  a  piece  of  white  woven 
transparent  material,  stretched  across  the  glass,  and  nailed  all  around 
the  window  frame ;  also  Japanese  crape  squares  having  lace  inser- 
tion between.  These  are  not,  however,  as  effective  as  the  transparent 
gauze  pictures,  with  gold  thread  interwoven  with  the  ground  work 
(which  may  be  either  black  or  white) ;  birds,  trees,  and  flowers 
standing  out  boldly  upon  them. 

Work-baskets  may  be  decorated  in  novel  fashions.  In  lieu  of 
quilted  satin  linings  inside,  and  bands  of  embroidered  serge  outside, 
with  numerous  tassels  depending,  of  all  shades,  the  exterior  of  the 
basket  is  left  unornamcnted,  and  the  inside  is  merely  plainly  lined 
with  holland.  On  this  holland  on  one  side  is  a  large  sunflower,  lily, 
or  any  other  flower  that  is  deemed  suitable,  worked  in  crewel.  If  the 
basket  is  of  the  square  form,  with  a  lid,  holland  is  still  used  and  ar- 
ranged as  pockets,  on  each  of  which  a  flower  is  worked.  Many  of  the 
newest  work-baskets  are  simple  squares  of  buckram,  bordered  with 
ribbon  wire,  and  bent  so  that  the  two  corners  meet  at  the  handles; 
these  are  worked  with  sprays  of  flowers  in  gold  thread.  The  wicker 
baskets  on  stands  have  their  contents  hidden  by  charmingly  worked 
covers.  The  reversible  satin  sheeting  is  a  favorite  material  for  these; 
any  conventional  design  is  worked  on  this. 

A  serviceable  cover  to  throw  over  a  lounge  or  couch  in  the  sitting- 
room  is  made  by  taking  a  broad,  bright  stripe  of  cretonne;  on  each 
side  of  this  put  a  stripe  of  black  or  dark  brown  cloth  (line  it  to  give 
body  to  it);  on  each  edge  put  a  row  of  fancy  stitches  in  silk  or 
crewel ;  the  ends  may  be  finished  with  fringe  or  not,  as  you  choose. 

Aprons  which  are  very  useful  in  the  kitchen  are  made  of  ticking; 
get  one  yard ;  put  a  band  on  as  for  any  apron,  then  turn  it  up  at  the 
bottom  for  a  quarter  of  a  yard,  or  even  more,  on  the  right  side;  fas- 
ten each  end  securely,  and  in  this  pocket  the  clothes-pins  can  be 
carried  or  used  with  ease. 

Wall-baskets  have  two  bows  of  ribbon  on  them,  one  placed  in  the 


234  THE  hearthstone;   ok,  life  at  home. 

centre  of  the  flat  part  that  is  fastened  to  the  wall,  and  the  other  on  the 
projecting  part.  This  large  bow  is  broad,  and  fuller  than  the  other,  and 
has  a  cluster  of  fruit  or  flowers  in  the  centre.  Little  remnants  of  plain 
or  shaded  ribbon  can  be  cut  into  lengths  of  seven  inches  or  eight 
inches,  and  four  inches  to  five  inches  wide,  edged  at  each  end  with 
lace,  gathered  up,  with  one  or  two  rows  of  "gauging"  in  the  centre, 
and  converted  into  pretty  ornaments  for  the  front  of  the  baskets.  Mus- 
lin can  be  made  up  in  the  same  way.  Scraps  of  colored  sateen  can  be 
mounted  over  double  pieces  of  card-board  cut  into  the  form  of  a  min- 
iature fan,  then  joined  together  to  hold  pins.  These  fans  can  be  of 
various  sizes,  and  the  divisions  are  marked  by  gold  or  colored  silk. 
A  small  floral  design  can  be  worked  or  painted  on.  The  pins  are 
put  in  all  round  the  edge.  Other  pin-cushions  of  old-gold  satin, 
mounted  in  the  same  way  over  card-board,  in  the  shape  of  Maltese 
crosses,  with  a  small  one  worked  in  red  silk  in  the  centre,  and  pins 
put  in  all  round,  are  also  novelties. 

For  woven  silk  curtain  bands  and  table  spreads,  collect  every  scrap 
of  silk,  whether  new  or  old,  pretty  or  homely,  about  the  house.  If 
you  have  light  silk  dresses  you  can  have  them  colored  at  a  dyer's 
any  color  you  wish.  It  matters  not  how  small  the  piece  is,  they  will 
color  it  for  you  at  small  expense.  Then  cut  them  in  small  strips,  a 
quarter  of  an  inch  wide — it  is  a  mistake  to  cut  them  too  wide,  some 
use  them  half  an  inch  wide — then  sew  them  carefully  together  the 
same  as  for  catpet-rags.  The  stripes  may  be  shaded  from  light  to 
dark  with  a  "hit-or-miss"  strip  in  the  centre,  or  the  whole  strip  may 
be  "hit-or-miss,"  and  may  be  made  much  handsomer  by  care  being 
taken  in  sewing  the  strips  together.  Whether  the  strips  are  straight 
or  bias,  or  cut  from  a  circle,  they  can  be  sewn  together  and  woven 
just  the  same.  Weigh  the  balls  and  when  you  have  eleven  pounds 
of  silk  send  them  to  a  weaver.  The  usual  price  for  weaving  is 
twenty-eight  cents  per  yard.  This  will  give  eight  yards  of  material 
thirty-five  inches  wide.  The  woof  is  usually  of  linen  thread  and  is 
scarcely  visible ;  but  if  the  silk  is  very  nice  and  a  particularly  hand- 
some article  is  desired^  silk  woof  is  the  most  desirable,  embroidery 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  235 

or  knitting  silk  being  used.  These  bands  are  used  for  curtain  val- 
ances, long  curtains,  or  portieres ;  for  mantel  valances,  chair  stripes, 
table  scarfs,  etc.  Square  table  covers  can  also  be  worn  in  this  way, 
the  edge  finished  with  a  handsotne  netted  silk  fringe.  These  woven 
stripes  and  covers  are  very  handsome,  and  will  well  repay  one,  even 
if  they  have  to  buy  ribbons  to  help  fill  out  the  stripes.  Ribbons  are 
so  cheap  now,  especially  those  that  are  a  little  out  of  style,  and  the 
wide  ones  can  be  cut  into  many  strips.  This  material  when  finished 
is  really  handsome,  falling  in  heavy,  rich  folds,  and  it  will  wear  ad- 
mirably. Woollen  goods  woven  in  the  same  manner  make  admirable 
rugs  and  foot-mats,  coarse  and  rough  garments  being  utilized  for  the 
latter. 

A  useful  and  pretty  gift  is  a  long  strip  of  satin  cloth  to  hang 
against  the  wall,  with  a  succession  of  pockets,  all  embroidered  with 
birds,  butterflies,  and  daisies. 

Perfume  sachets  may  be  made  by  taking  pieces  of  bright-colored 
silk  or  ribbon,  four  inches  long  and  two  inches  wide,  sew  up  two- 
thirds  of  the  length  and  put  narrow  lace  on  the  edge,  fill  them  with 
cotton  sprinkled  thickly  with  perfume  powder,  trim  with  bows  of 
narrow  satin  ribbon  and  paste  a  small  embossed  picture  on  each 
one.     These  are  pretty  for  children. 

To  crystallize  grasses  and  flowers,  dissolve  six  ounces  of  alum  in 
one  quart  of  water,  and  boil  until  dissolved ;  then  steep  the  grasses 
or  flowers  in  the  solution  while  hot.  If,  by  the  time  the  water  is  cold, 
the  crystals  are  too  large,  then  add  more  water.  Separate  the  little 
branches  gently,  taking  off  the  superfluous  lumps.  Fern  leaves, 
oats,  flax  and  the  long  feathery  grasses  arc  the  most  beautiful  for 
crystallizing. 

To  press  flowers,  gather  the  flov/ers  to  be  pressed  when  the  dew- 
has  quite  dried  off"  from  them,  and  before  the  sun  has  become  so 
warm  as  to  wilt  them.  Put  them  between  newspapers  or  any  other 
porous  papers,  and  place  them  under  a  press.  Change  them  every 
day  to  fresh  paper  until  they  are  dried.  All  the  thin-leaved  flowers 
will  be  found  best  to  use  for  this  purpose. 


236  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

The  long  "  catkins,"  or  pampas  plumes,  now  so  fashionable  every- 
where, can  be  arranged  in  large  bunches,  the  long  stems  tied  once 
or  twice  with  bright  ribbons.  They  are  placed  in  a  blue  ginger 
jar,  and  make  a  pretty  decoration  in  a  hall  or  a  corner  of  a  room. 

In  hanging-baskets,  one  of  the  prettiest  styles  is  made  by  taking  a 
common  horse  muzzle,  made  of  wire,  and  have  it  painted,  with  oil 
colors,  green.  Then,  when  dry,  take  large  pieces  or  sheets  of  the 
bright  green  moss,  which  abounds  in  the  woods  and  by  the  roadsides 
in  the  spring,  and  line  the  inside  with  it,  letting  the  green  side  be 
turned  outward.  Then  fill  up  the  centre  with  earth  and  plant  your 
vines  and  flowers,  three  cords  being  fastened  to  the  top  wire  at  regular 
distances,  by  which  it  is  to  be  hung  up.  It  can  be  watered  occasion- 
ally, and  the  moss  freshened  by  dipping  it  into  a  bucket  of  water. 
Another  variety  is  the  rustic  style,  so  popular  and  beautiful.  In 
order  to  make  one  of  these,  procure  from  the  woods  a  number  of 
crooked  branches  and  rough,  knotty  twigs.  Put  them  to  soak  in  hot 
water,  or  steam  them,  so  as  to  render  them  perfectly  pliable.  Get 
one  of  the  turned  wooden  bowls,  such  as  are  to  be  found  in  house- 
furnishing  stores ;  stain  it  with  som.e  of  the  brown  staining  materials 
or  black  varnish,  and  then  bore  holes  or  insert  screw  rings  on  the 
outside  for  the  cords  or  chains  to  pass  through.  Now  bend  around 
the  outside  of  the  bowl  one  of  the  branches  and  nail  it  securely  at 
the  top  edges  on  either  side.  Several  pieces  can  be  twined  around  in 
this  way,  according  to  one's  taste,  until  the  whole  surface  is  covered  ; 
then  finish  off  with  one  around  the  edge  for  a  border.  •  When  this  is 
varnished  it  is  very  pretty,  and  the  vines  will,  of  course,  be  trained 
to  hang  over  the  edge. 

No  picture  ought  to  be  hung  higher  than  the  height  of  the  aver- 
age human  eye  when  the  owner  of  the  eye  is  standing.  It  is  the 
most  universal  rule  in  our  houses  to  hang  pictures  much  above  this 
level,  and  they  cannot  be  enjoyed  there.  If  the  picture  is  a  portrait 
or  it  has  human  faces  in  it,  its  eyes  should  look  as  nearly  into  ours 
as  possible ;  and  if  there  be  no  such  simple  guide,  perhaps  a  good 
rule  will  be  to  have  the  line  that  divides  the  picture  horizontally  into 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  237 

equal  parts  level  with  the  eye.  If  one  starts  to  hanging  pictures  with 
the  determination  to  place  them  so  that  they  can  be  easily  seen  and 
enjoyed  without  stretching  the  neck  in  the  least,  or  stooping  the  body, 
he  will  be  pretty  sure  to  do  well.  As  people  come  to  enjoy  pictures 
and  get  some  intellectual,  spiritual  nourishment  out  of  them,  they 
want  them  as  they  want  their  books,  where  they  can  see  them  and 
use  them. 

Among  designs  for  screens,  usually  the  panel  shape  is  preferred, 
and  ciel  blue,  maroon,  pale  yellow,  olive  green,  gray,  old  gold  and 
black  are  the  colors  preferred.  Take  the  silk  and  line  it  with  two 
thicknesses  of  paper  cambric.  It  is  better  to  use  white  cambric,  as  a 
dark  shade  will  sometimes  be  perceptible  through  the  texture  of  the 
silk.  Cut  the  lining  somewhat  narrower  than  the  outside  silk,  place 
it  on  the  silk,  and  sew  up  the  two  opposite  long  edges.  Then  turn  it 
so  that  the  seams  will  be  inside,  leaving  the  top  and  bottom  edges 
raw  and  unfinished,  and  stretch  it  upon  a  drawing-board  or  small 
table  ready  to  paint.  If  unused  to  the  free  handling  of  the  brush, 
the  worker  may  find  it  desirable  to  trace  the  outline  of  her  design 
with  faint  pencil  marks  upon  the  silk.  Afterward  the  color  may  be 
carefully  laid  on,  and  the  design  may  then  be  enlarged  or  improved 
upon  as  desired.  Water-colors  are  preferable  in  painting  upon  silk, 
though  oil  paints,  if  carefully  put  on,  may  also  be  used.  Daisies, 
thistles,  wheat,  clover,  grasses,  water  lilies,  Cherokee  wild  roses, 
morning  glories,  scarlet  cockscombs,  cat-tails  and  Japan  lilies  are 
among  the  prettiest  flower  designs.  Three  or  five  peacock  plumes 
carelessly  grouped  together,  a  stork,  peacock  or  scarlet  flamingo  are 
among  the  odd  designs  for  screens.  When  the  painting  is  completed 
the  silk  panel  must  then  be  framed.  Plush  or  velvet  is  generally 
used  for  the  frame  or  border  put  on  the  top  and  bottom  edges  and 
the  sides  left  plain.  The  frame  is  usually  of  a  contrasting  color  in 
bamboo,  reeds  or  wood. 

Very  pretty  work-baskets  may  be  made  of  strawberry  baskets, 
lined  with  red  Turkey  twill  or  satin,  the  lining  forming  a  bag,  which 
draws  up  at  the  top  with  a  ribbon,  and  when  open  turns  down  over 


238  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

the  basket.  Two  pockets  are  set  on  opposite  sides  of  the  basket 
(inside,  of  course),  and  a  needle-book  and  straps  for  holding  scissors, 
thimbles,  etc.,  are  fastened  to  the  others. 

As  the  season  approaches  when  the  fires  are  about  to  die  out,  there 
comes  up  the  question  of  fireboards,  or  some  means  of  replacing  the 
cheerful  glow  of  the  hearth.     One  of  the  prettiest  ways  is  to  cut  out 
of  black  net  the  shape  of  a  peacock's  tail  and  mount  it  and  then  cover 
it  with  the  feathers  of  the  peacock,  which    are  now  so  happily  intro- 
duced into  all  kinds  of  decoration,  and  are  especially  adapted  to  this 
purpose.     In  the  centre  can  be  placed  the  head  and  breast  of  the  bird 
itself,  if  possible ;  if  not,  a  bird  with  suitable  tints,  such  as  comes  for 
milliner}'-  purposes,  can  be  used.     There  are,  in  fact,  few  more  beautiful 
feathers  than  can  be  found  in  our  ordinary  barnyard  fowls,  which 
might  be  saved  and  used  in  various  ways.     Other  beautiful  fireboards 
can  be  made  of  silk,  linen,  or  any  of  the  woollen  goods  which  come 
for  decorative  purposes,  and  embroidered  in  silk  and  crewels.     Of 
embroidery  it  should  be  urged  that  for  effectiveness  it  is  necessary  to 
adhere  to  one  kind  of  stitch,  as  well  as  to  insist  on  tones  in  choosing 
color,  rather  than  contrasts.     For  example,  avoid   using  orange  in 
connection  with  blue,  but  choose  in  preference  red  or  green.     To  ex- 
plain this  preference  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  chapter ;  but  it  is 
worth  while  for  all  persons  interested  in  decorative  work  to  give  some 
attention  to  modern  color  schemes  as  against  those  which  formerly 
prevailed.     Painted  screens  are  equally  desirable.     It  is  not  necessary 
to  refer  to  materials  in  regard  to  these,  further  than  to  mention  that 
such  grass  matting  as  comes  about  tea  chests,  and  ordinary  coarse 
burlap,  stretched  and  gilded,  is  an  excellent  ground  to  receive  bold 
decoration  in  oils  or  water  colors.    Suitable  grounds  for  such  designs 
are  cacti  and  flowers — sunflowers,  hollyhocks  and  other  large-petaled 
plants  and  foliage  with  brilliant  coloring.     The  banneret  adapts  itself 
nicely  to  the  use  of  the  fireboard,  and  has  the  advantage  of  serving 
as  a  screen  in  winter.     The  standard  can  be  purchased  of  gilded 
bronze,  in  itself  very  attractive,  or  can  be  made  out  of  wood  by  any 
carpenter  who  has  a  lathe.     This  consists  of  an  upright  on  legs  or 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  .  239 

with  a  solid  base,  and  a  cross-bar  nicely  finished  at  the  ends.     This  is 
the  foundation  for  whatever  the  skill  of  the  individual  can  produce. 

Still  another  purpose  to  which  the  ubiquitous  Japanese  fan  is 
applied  is  that  of  serving  as  a  foundation  for  a  wall-pocket.  Cover 
one  side  with  silk  or  satin,  and  above  this  sew  a  full,  flat  pocket,  con- 
cealing the  stitches  along  the  edge  under  a  ruche  of  satin  ribbon  or 
pinked  silk.  Fasten  a  bow  of  ribbon  or  a  cluster  of  flowers  in  the 
centre  of  the  pocket,  and  bore  a  hole  in  the  handle,  through  which 
pass  a  string  to  form  a  loop  by  which  to  hang  the  pocket.  Finish  by 
adding  a  knot  of  ribbon  tied  around  the  handle,  to  hide  the  loop. 

Sachets  for  bureau  drawers  and  boxes  can  be  made  of  pieces  of 
silk  merino  or  muslin.  Take  a  piece  of  silk  eight  inches  long  and 
two  and  one-half  inches  wide.  Double  and  sew  sides  together;  fill 
with  aromatic  herbs,  if  you  have  any ;  if  not,  your  druggist  will  fill 
for  a  trifle.  Fill  to  within  an  inch  and  one-half  of  the  top ;  then  sew 
across,  draw  up  and  fasten.  Tie  a  ribbon  around  with  bow.  Sew 
lace  or  fringe  all  around  sachet. 

Economical  mats,  for  use  in  front-doors,  fireplaces,  bureaus,  stands, 
etc.,  may  be  made  of  coffee-sacking,  cut  to  any  desirable  size,  and 
worked  in  bright  worsted  or  Germantown  wool.  Any  simple  pattern 
may  be  used,  or  it  may  be  entirely  filled  in  with  a  plain  green.  The 
edges  of  the  sacking  may  be  fringed  by  ravelling.  To  give  it  weight, 
line  with  an  old  piece  of  carpet  or  heavy  cloth. 

To  paint  on  velvet,  use  any  of  the  ordinary  non-corrosive  pig- 
ments or  liquid  colors  thickened  with  a  little  gum.  Preference 
should  be  given  to  those  that  possess  the  greatest  brilliancy  and 
which  dry  w^ithout  spreading.  Stretch  your  silk  as  you  would  for 
water-color  drawing.  Take  your  water-color  and  mix  with  thin 
solution  of  gum-arabic  to  prevent  from  rubbing  off  To  paint  on  silk 
with  oil-color,  a  sizing  is  necessary  to  prevent  the  oil  from  .spreading. 
Take  the  white  of  an  egg  and  whisk.  Soak  the  silk  thoroughly  with 
the  egg,  then  wipe  dry  with  a  piece  of  v/hite  silk,  stretch  tightly  on 
frame,  and  when  dry  paint  as  in  water-color. 

Pretty  stand  covers  can  be  made  of  brown  Turkish  towelling  and 


240  .      THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

bright  worsted  braids.  A  lovely  one  is  made  as  follows  :  Baste  two 
inches  from  edges  brown  worsted  braid  and  cat-stitch  with  gold- 
colored  silk ;  one  and  a  half  inches  above  that,  scarlet  braid  cat- 
stitched  with  black  silk ;  and  one  and  a  half  inches  above  that,  brown 
again ;  finish  with  fringe  to  match. 

Often  would  we  recover  some  of  our  old,  faded  chairs,  but  dare 
not  attempt  it,  lest  we  make,  in  our  inexperience,  a  sorry  job.     A 
few  hints  on  the  subject  will  enable  the  most  timid  to  become  with 
success  their  own  upholsterers.     The  nails  must  first  be  drawn  from 
the  old  cover,  and  this  is  best  accomplished  by  first  loosening  them, 
placing  a  screwdriver  or  chisel  against  their  sides  and  hammering 
them.     When  the  old  cover  has  been  removed,  lay  it  over  the  new 
material,  and  cut  the  latter  carefully  out,  making  all  the  slits  and 
markings  with  pins  where  the  arms  are  to  come,  so  that  in  placing  it 
on  the  chair  it  will  not  be  drawn  either  to  the  one  side  or  the  other. 
There  are  three  pieces — one  for  the  bottom,  one  for  the  back,  and  the 
third  for  the  outside   and   back   part   of  the  chair.      For  buttons, 
button-moulds  covered  with  the  material  used  for  the  chair  would  do, 
but  the  prunella  or  velvet  buttons,  which  all  the  upholsterers  have, 
are  better.     After  carefully  placing  the  piece  cut  out  for  the  seat  of 
the  chair  over  it  and  fitting  it  exactly,  begin  to  button  it  down.    Take 
a  long  mattress   needle,  thread  it  with  string,  and  push   it  from  the 
under  side  of  the  chair  up  in  the  place  which  marks  the  position  of 
the  old  button  through  the  new  cover.     Then  force  the  button  on  the 
needle  and  twine,  and  pass  the  needle  down  again  through  the  cover 
one-eighth  of  an  inch  from  where  it  came  up ;  pull  the  twine  very 
tight,  and  tie  in  a  tight   knot.     A  knot  used  by  the  trade,  which  is 
better,  is   made  by  holding  one  end  of  the  string  in  the  left  hand, 
passing  the  twine  under  and  through  the  loop  from  the  under  side. 
This  knot  will  run   up  close,  and  can  be  tied  fast  without  slipping. 
The  corner  must  be  folded  by  the  buttons,  and  made  to  lie  smoothly. 
After  the  buttons  are  all  fastened,  nail  on  the  cover  of  the  back,  pin- 
ning it  to  keep  it  in  place,  and  button  it  down  in  the  same  way.     Pin 
the   outside   of  the  back  on,  which  requires   no  tufting,  and   nail  it 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  24I 

smoothly  with  the  tacks  quite  close  together,  turning  a  little  of  the 
material  tinder  to  make  it  stronger.  The  braid  is  put  on  last  of  all, 
and  can  be  either  tacked  on  with  gimp  tacks  or  sewn.  If  it  is  sewn, 
the  needle  used  is  shaped  like  a  crescent.  And  now  our  chair  is 
finished,  and  will  quite  pay  for  the  trouble. 

Nothing  is  better  to  clean  silver  with  than  alcohol  and  ammonia. 
After  rubbing  with  this,  take  a  little  whiting  on  a  soft  cloth  and 
polish.  Even  frosted  silver  may  be  easily  made  clear  and  bright  in 
this  way. 

A  pretty  pincushion  is  made  of  three  pieces  of  woollen  three 
inches  square ;  sew  together  and  fill  with  bran  or  flannel  clippings, 
and  crochet  an  edge  around  the  seams ;  crochet  a  cord  and  tassels  to 
hang  up  by. 

Very  pretty  moss  frames  for  engravings  or  photographs  may  be 
made  of  moss  that  is  found  on  the  bark  of  forest  trees.  To  make 
these  frames,  make  stiff  cardboard  foundations  and  attach  the  moss 
with  glue,  commencing  with  the  lightest  shades  of  moss  for  the  inside 
edges  of  the  frame,  and  the  darkest  for  the  outer  edges. 

Colored  sheeting  looks  well  for  a  carriage  rug,  if  a  large  mono- 
gram is  worked  in  the  centre  and  a  spray  of  flowers  in  each  corner. 
Brown  Holland,  bound  around  with  red  or  dark-blue  braid,  should 
be  worked  in  all  one  color,  or  chintz  flowers  may  be  arranged  all 
around  and  appliqued  on ;  or  if  a  design  of  flowers  and  leaves  are 
worked  upon  a  wide  band  of  blue,  it  would  look  well ;  the  blue  to  be 
stitched  to  the  carriage  cloth,  adding  long  stitches  on  each  side  of  the 
band ;  they  should  be  "  spikcy  "  stitches,  which  are  easily  worked  and 
very  effective  if  done  in  some  bright  color. 

Inexpensive  and  vciy  pretty  tidies  can  be  made  of  ticking,  bright 

Germantown  yarn  and  the  gay  borders  of  print.     Take  the  print  and 

sew  on  one  strip  in  the  centre  of  the  ticking,  and  unless  the  tidy  is 

very  large  a  strip  on  each  side  will  be  sufficient.     With  the  wool,  or 

zephyr,  if  it  is  preferred,  work  in  the  white  stripe,  coral  or  feather 

stitch.     Tie  a  fringe  in  the  ends,  of  the  same  yarn  used  in  working 

the  tidy.    The  brown  figured  towelling  is  also  very  pretty  and  durable ; 
16 


242  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

work  the  figures  with  zephyr  of  all  different  shades  and  finish  with 
fi-inge;  or,  if  preferred,  ravel  out  the  ends  and  overcast  with  the 
yarn. 

Now  that  the  whisk-broom  has  been  accommodated  with  holders 
of  every  description,  its  cousin,  the  feather-duster,  is  beginning  to 
emerge  from  retirement,  and  occupy  a  place  on  the  wall  in  some 
convenient  corner.  A  case  made  for  it  which  really  serves  to  convert 
this  useful  article  into  one  of  ornament,  is  on  the  same  plan  as  those 
modelled  for  the  whisk-broom,  except  that  it  is  round  instead  of  flat. 
The  lining  may  be  either  scarlet  or  blue  satin,  and  both  the  top  and 
bottom  of  the  holder  are  trimmed  with  fancy  fringe,  headed  by  a 
ruche  of  satin  ribbon,  matching  the  lining  in  color.  A  band  of  satin 
ribbon  crosses  diagonally  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,  and  is  caught 
in  the  middle  under  a  bow.  A  cord  and  tassels  fastened  at  the  top 
serve  to  suspend  the  holder. 

A  very  pretty  way  to  use  ferns  is  to  make  a  picture  to  hang  in  a 
window.  Take  two  pieces  of  glass  of  the  same  size  and  as  large  as 
you  wish  the  picture  to  be.  Try  to  select  them  as  clear  and  free  from 
blemish  as  possible.  Upon  one  of  these  arrange  some  of  the  finest 
and  prettiest  of  the  pressed  ferns.  A  few  tiny  shells  can  be  put 
among  them,  and  bright-hued  butterflies,  in  such  a  way  as  to  seem 
poised  upon  the  leaves.  Some  moss,  such  as  can  be  found  anywhere 
in  the  wood,  upon  stumps  or  fallen  trees,  can  be  placed  at  the  place 
where  the  stems  come  together,  and  some  little  red  berries  stuck  in 
it.  When  fairly  arranged  fasten  each  separate  piece  to  the  glass 
with  a  drop  of  gum  arabic,  which  is  colorless  and  does  not  affect  the 
ferns.  Do  not  use  mucilage.  When  dry  and  secure,  place  the  other 
glass  over  and  fasten  the  edges  by  a  tape  gummed  on  of  exactly  the 
width  of  the  two  glasses  joined.  A  pretty  finish  over  that  is  a  bind- 
ing of  silver  paper  extending  over  the  edges  upon  the  glass  on  each 
side.  This  is  not  necessary  if  the  picture  is  put  in  a  light  frame  in 
order  to  suspend  it.  If  the  frame  is  not  used,  then  holes  must  be 
drilled  in  the  glasses  for  a  cord  before  the  picture  is  made. 

When  selecting  a  place  to  hang  a  thermometer,  remember,  in  the 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  243 

first  place,  the  temperature  of  the  wall  of  any  building  at  any  hour  of 
the  night  or  day  is  not  the  true  temperature  of  the  circulating  air, 
and  is  of  no  use  to  science.  A  wooden  wall  will  radiate  its  heat 
more  rapidly  than  a  brick  or  stone,  and  the  amateur  scientist  who 
hangs  his  thermometer  on  a  wooden  wall  can  force  his  mercury 
down  below  the  amateur  who  selects  a  brick  wall.  The  proper  way 
to  expose  your  thermometer  is  to  surround  it  with  a  light  wooden 
frame,  covered  with  slats,  like  shutter-work,  and  roofed  over.  This 
will  protect  it  from  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun  and  reflected  heat.  Run 
a  light  wooden  bar  across  the  centre  of  }'our  shelter,  to  which  you 
can  attach  the  thermometer,  which  should  be,  when  properly  ex- 
posed, on  the  north  side  of  the  building,  and  at  least  one  foot  from 
all  surrounding  objects.  If  these  directions  are  followed,  erroneous 
reports  of  extreme  cold  weather  will  not  find  their  way  into  print  so 
often. 

To  make  a  case  for  overshoes,  take  one-half  yard  square  of  leather 
cloth,  line  with  thin  flannel  and  bind  around  with  worsted  braid. 
Place  two  pockets  inside  diagonally,  twelve  inches  long,  twelve  and 
a  half  broad,  line  with  leather  cloth,  flannel  outside.  Around  the 
edge  of  the  case  and  pockets  put  narrow  serpentine  worsted  braid 
and  fasten  with  yellow  floss.  To  fasten  the  case,  tie  each  corner  in 
the  centre,  or  roll  and  fasten  with  a  button  and  loop,  first  turning  the 
two  points  and  tying  to  keep  the  shoes  in  place. 

If  tablecloths,  napkins,  and  handkerchiefs  are  folded  an  inch  or 
two  beyond  the  middle  they  will  last  much  longer;  it  is  on  the  edges 
of  folds  where  they  first  wear,  and  not  folding  them  on  a  middle  line, 
each  ironing,  they  get  a  new  crease. 

A  charcoal  sketch  may  be  preserved  by  brushing  the  back  of  the 
drawing  with  a  spirit  varnish,  made  of  one-third  of  an  ounce  of  white 
lac  dissolved  in  one  half-pint  of  alcohol. 

Brown  paper  of  the  darkest  shade  and  thickest  texture,  and  gray 
paper  of  a  cool  granite  tint,  are  just  now  much  in  demand  as  mate- 
rials for  painting  upon  for  dadoes,  panels,  cornices,  book-covers,  and 
other  things.      They  give  a  background   on  which  the   light  and 


244  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

shade  are  at  once  relieved;  and  while  gray  paper  is  the  softest, 
brown  paper,  partly  by  the  contrast  of  its  rough  surface,  gives  the 
most  relief.  The  best  brown  paper  for  the  purpose  is  the  stout,  con- 
tinuous kind  used  by  paper-hangers  and  upholsterers  for  backing. 

Salad  oil  bottles  make  very  good  vases.  Remove  the  straw 
work  and  cover  with  two  coats  of  black  paint;  paste  on  them  scrap 
pictures  of  flowers,  butterflies,  ferns,  etc.;  varnish  well  and  tie  bows 
of  bright  ribbon  round  the  neck  or  a  band  of  gold  paper.  If  small, 
common  flower-pots  are  covered  with  the  black  silhouettes  frequently 
seen  in  illustrated  papers  and  German  books,  and  afterward  var- 
nished and  suspended  by  cords,  they  will  form  unique  hanging-bas- 
kets for  ferns  and  vines. 

A  novel  hanging-basket  maybe  made  as  follows:  Among  trees 
that  have  just  been  felled  some  may  be  found  with  slender  trunks. 
Cut  a  piece  from  one  of  these  about  a  foot  long,  more  or  less,  as  you 
care,  remove  the  bark,  saw  off  the  top  flat  on  the  lengthy  side  and 
scoop  out  the  interior,  leaving  about  one  inch  or  less  of  thickness  on 
the  sides  and  bottom ;  paint  of  a  brown  color  and  varnish ;  tack  on 
the  sides  either  a  chain,  ribbon,  or  card  to  hang  it  by;  fill  the  trunk 
with  artificial  moss  and  flowers,  and  you  have  a  hanging-basket 
unique  in  its  way. 

The  following  is  said  to  be  an  excellent  method  of  fastening  cloth 
to  the  top  of  tables,  desks,  etc.:  Make  a  mixture  of  two  and  a  quar- 
ter pounds  of  wheat  flour,  two  tablespoonfuls  of  powdered  resin,  and 
two  tablespoonfuls  of  powdered  alum;  rub  the  mixture  in  a  suitable 
vessel,  with  water,  to  a  uniform,  smooth  paste;  transfer  this  to  a 
small  kettle  over  a  fire,  and  stir  until  the  paste  is  perfectly  homogene- 
ous, without  lumps.  As  soon  as  the  mass  has  become  so  stiff  that 
the  stirrer  remains  upright  in  it,  transfer  to  another  vessel  and  cover 
it  up  so  that  no  skin  may  form  on  its  surface.  This  paste  is  applied 
in  a  very  thin  layer  to  the  surface  of  the  table;  the  cloth,  or  leather, 
is  then  laid  and  pressed  upon  it,  and  smoothed  with  a  roller.  The 
ends  are  cut  off  after  drying.  If  leather  is  to  be  fastened  on,  this 
must  first  be  moistened  with  water.  The  paste  is  then  applied,  and 
the  leather  rubbed  smooth  with  a  cloth. 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  245 

Old  photographs  of  the  fancy  kinds  may  be  used  advantageously 
by  pasting  them  on  screens  or  lampshades,  and  subsequently  glazing 
them. 

Cone  frames  are  easily  made,  and  the  materials  are  within  the 
reach  of  all.  The  foundation  is  of  heavy  paste-board  and  the  various 
materials  are  secured  with  glue.  Cone  scales  are  placed  around  the 
outer  and  inner  edges,  and  the  centre  of  the  frame  may  be  filled  with 
acorns,  the  centre  of  cones,  which  look  like  little  roses,  beech-nut 
hulls,  small  twigs  and  the  various  nuts  and  seeds  formed  into  flowers 
to  represent  a  continuous  wreath.  The  frame  must  be  cut  to  fit  the 
picture  and  may  be  of  any  width  desired;  the  back  must  also  be  of 
card-board,  and  then  the  glass  and  picture  placed  between  the  front 
and  back,  and  the  two  sewed  together,  after  which  the  frame  may  be 
decorated  as  above. 

A  lovely  pair  of  curtains  may  be  made  of  ordinary  fine  muslin, 
curtains  on  which  may  be  tastefully  grouped  birds,  flowers,  Watteau 
shepherds  and  shepherdesses,  or  graceful  ferns,  peacocks,  oriental 
foliage,  and  bright-hued  butterflies  cut  from  cretonne.  Cretonne  may 
be  purchased  in  great  variety  of  styles,  but  too  many  subjects  should 
not  be  introduced  into  one  piece  of  work.  The  flowers,  etc.,  are 
appliqued  on,  and  worked  up  in  colored  filoselles.  The  result  of 
this  work  is  very  graceful  if  the  design  is  carried  out  in  an  unstudied 
manner,  and  has  always  the  charm  of  novelty. 

A  pretty  three-fold  screen  may  be  worked  on  dull  blue  English 
serge  in  crewels.  On  one  panel  might  be  a  bird-nest  and  birds  011 
a  branch,  upon  the  next,  wild  roses  and  butterflies,  and  on  the  third, 
a  bouquet  of  lilies  or  marguerites. 

Waste-paper  baskets,  work-baskets,  or  rush-baskets  for  shopping, 
make'  a  pretty  and  inexpensive  present.  Lace  ribbon  in  and  out 
through  the  rushes,  put  a  bow  on  the  front  and  fasten  in  a  bunch  of 
acorns,  either  natural  or  manufactured  of  silk  and  chenille.  If  the 
natural  ones  are  used,  take  a  piece  of  fine  wire  and  fasten  to  the  stem 
of  the  acorn,  and  you  can  easily  arrange  them  in  any  way  to  suit  your 
taste.     They  are  very  ornamental  when  bronzed,  but  may  be  used 


.246  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

when  in  a  state  of  nature,  just  as  they  were  picked  up  in  the  woods. 
-To  bronze  them  get  a  few  cents'  worth  of  bronze  powder  at  a 
drug  store,  mix  it  with  varnish  and  apply  with  a  soft  cloth.  The 
powder  must  be  used  very  soon  after  mixing  with  the  varnish,  or  it 
will  harden  so  that  it  will  be  impossible  to  use  it  successfully. 

Easels  are  so  general  in  drawing-rooms  where  engravings  and 
water-colors  accumulate,  that  it  is  the  fashion  to  cover  old  ones  with 
velvet,  adding  ornamental  silk  tassels  to  the  top  and  to  the  lowest  of 
the  set  of  holes  which  support  the  ledge.  The  covering  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  manage.  The  velvet  requires  tacking  first,  and  then  sewing, 
where  the  stitches  will  be  most  invisible,  with  fine  but  strong  black 
tliread.  Where  the  holes  are,  cut  the  circle  in  four,  saturate  the  in- 
side of  the  velvet  with  strong  gum,  and  press  the  pieces  well  down 
with  the  wooden  pin. 

A  bouquet  of  cut  flowers  may  be  preserved  fresh  in  vases  by  put- 
ting a  handful  of  salt  or  a  piece  of  charcoal  in  the  water,  to  increase 
its  coldness.  If  put  under  a  glass  shade,  or  vase,  where  it  can  be 
excluded  from  the  air,  it  will  keep  a  long  time. 

For  watch  and  jewelry  cases,  select  some  smooth,  unbroken  pine 
chips  and  cut  them  into  heart-shaped  leaves;  have  a  circle  of  card- 
board to  which  you  have  fastened  either  a  standing  wire  or  stick, 
intended  for  the  bouquet-handle;  then  glue  your  pine  leaves  upon  the 
card-board  like  a  rose,  three  or  four  ply;  upon  this  place  a  piece  of 
card-board  cut  in  points,  that  you  have  first  lined  with  silk  or  velvet 
and  edged  with  beads.  This  is  for  the  jewelry.  Make  a  bouquet  of 
chips;  ornament  with  stitches  of  silk,  or  touch  with  water-colors;  in 
the  centre  of  the  rose  glue  a  second  velvet-covered  receptacle  for  the 
watch;  tie  the  bouquet  to  the  bouquet-handle.  A  chain  of  gilt  beads 
connects  the  watch-case  to  the  jewelry-case  on  each  side.  A  coat 
of  white  varnish  preserves  and  improves  the  chip-work.  This  must 
be  applied  with  a  hair-brush.  When  made  it  is  beautiful.  Those 
,in  possession  of  fine  large  shells  can  obtain  beautiful  jewelry-cases  by 
having  them  mounted  on  carved  pedestals,  either  of  wood  or  metal. 
"Another  way  to  mount  these  shells  is  to  have  them  supported  on 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION. 


247 


each  side  by  dragons  or  other  mythological  subjects,  but  this  style 
is  more  costly. 

A  nice  knife  and  fork  case  may  be  made  of  wash-leather  and  flan- 
nel or  cashmere.  For  the  inside,  cut  a  piece  of  wash-leather  twenty 
inches  wide  and  twenty-four  inches  long,  shaped  at  one  end  with  the 
corners  cut  off;  then  cut  a  similar  piece  in  cashmere  or  flannel  and 
ornament  with  a  cross-stitch  border  all  round :  bind  the  leather  and 
cashmere  together  with  a  narrow  ribbon.  Sew  a  strip  of  embroidery 
down  the  centre  of  the  inside,  stitching  it  across  at  intervals  to  form 
loops  through  which  to  pass  the  knives,  etc.  The  two  pieces  fold 
over  the  sides,  and  the  case  is  fastened  with  a  strap  and  button. 

Tobacco  pouches  are  made  of  soft  kid,  cut  in  a  circle  and  bound 
with  ribbon,  embroidered  in  colored  silks  with  a  floral  design  and 
monogram,  or  Panama  or  Russian  canvas,  lined  with  India-rubber 
cloth. 

Flat-bottomed  chairs  can  be  made  to  look  nicely  by  first  taking  a 
strip  of  strong  cloth  as  wide  as  the  chair  seat,  and  twice  the  length, 
pass  it  under  the  chair  and  sew  it  tightly  together  on  the  top ;  then 
cut  a  pattern  exactly  fitting  the  chair  and  cover  with  rep,  cretonne,  or 
chintz.  Finish  with  a  border  of  the  same  about  three  inches  wide. 
Very  good  covers  can  be  pieced  log-cabin  style  and  finished  with  a 
valance  of  woollen  goods  pinked  around  the  edge. 

A  much-used  room,  where  the  wall-paper  is  likely  to  be  marked 
by  chair  backs,  etc.,  can  be  made  neat  and  pretty  by  a  dado  of  col- 
ored matting,  which  comes  in  a  variety  of  block  patterns  and  shades, 
and  of  various  widths.  Even  the  ordinary  red  and  white  matting 
makes  a  good  finish  tacked  up  to  the  wall,  with  brass,  or  silver,  or 
invisible  tacks;  and  there  are  larger  delicate  checks  in  greens,  and 
yellow,  and  brown  mattings  that  combine  beautifully  with  pale  wall- 
papers. 

Autumn  leaves  or  ferns  arranged  on  thin  silk,  and  covered  with 
transparent  muslin  with  pinked  edge,  are  lovely;  and  pretty  shades 
are  made  of  lace  lined  with  colored  silk  and  edged  with  fringe. 

An  easy  way  to  make  zephyr  balls  is  as  follows:  has  any  one  ever 


248  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

made  worsted  balls  on  a  fork?  It  is  a  great  deal  easier  and  quicker 
way  than  cutting  out  pieces  of  card.  Wind  the  worsted  around  the 
fork ;  be  sure  and  wind  considerable,  so  as  to  have  the  ball  full ; 
then  tic  tightly  through  the  centre  of  the  fork  with  the  cord ;  cut  the 
worsted  on  two  sides  of  the  fork,  then  finish  by  trimming  it  to  its 
proper  shape. 

To  make  a  pretty  trimming  of  feather-edged  braid  take  the  braid  and 
crochet  a  heading  on  one  side,  then  a  pretty  edge  of  crochet  on  the 
other,  making  it  wide  or  narrow,  as  you  like,  using  medium-sized  thread. 

The  little  Japanese  parasols,  which  can  be  bought  for  four  or  five 
cents,  make  very  pretty  hair  receivers.  Open  them  about  half  their 
extent;  if  necessary  to  make  them  stay  half  open,  catch  them  with 
a  few  stitches.  Put  a  loop  of  ribbon  around  the  handle  and  hang 
them  up. 

Chain  stitch  is  now  but  little  used  in  embroidery,  although  it  may 
sometimes  be  suitable  for  lines.  It  is  made  by  taking  a  stitch  from 
right  to  left,  and  before  the  needle  is  drawn  out  the  thread  is 
brought  round  towards  the  worker,  and  under  the  point  of  the  needle. 
The  next  stitch  is  taken  from  the  point  of  the  loop  thus  formed  for- 
ward, and  the  thread  again  kept  under  the  point  of  the  needle,  so 
that  a  regular  chain  is  formed  on  the  surface  of  the  material.  This 
chain  stitch  was  much  employed  for  ground  patterns  in  the  beautiful 
gold-colored  work  on  linen,  for  dress  or  furniture,  which  prevailed 
from  the  time  of  James  I.,  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
It  gave  the  appearance  of  quilting  when  worked  on  linen  in  geomet- 
rical designs  or  in  fine  and  often-repeated  arabesques.  Examples 
come  from  Germany  and  Spain  in  which  the  design  is  worked  in 
satin  stitch,  or  entirely  filled  in  with  solid  chain  stitch  in  a  uniform 
gold-colored  silk.  Twisted  chain  or  rope  stitch  is  effective  for  out- 
lines on  coarse  materials,  such  as  blankets,  carriage  rugs,  footstools, 
.etc.  It  is  like  an  ordinary  chain,  except  that,  in  place  of  starting  the 
second  stitch  from  the  centre  of  the  loop,  the  needle  is  taken  back  to 
half  the  distance  behind  it,  and  the  loop  is  pushed  to  one  side  to 
allow  the  needle  to  enter  in  a  straight  line  with  the  former  stitch.     It 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION. 


249 


is  not  of  much  use  except  when  worked  with  double  crewel  or  with 
tapestry  wool,  and  should  then  have  the  appearance  of  a  twisted 
rope. 

A  pretty  mat  for  the  floor  and  one  that  will  cost  little  is  made  of 
burlap  worked  in  cross  stitch  with  different  colored  worsteds.  There 
is  no  pattern  or  design,  but  use  the  odds  and  ends  of  zephyrs  that 
you  happen  to  have  left  from  other  fancy  work,  and  let  them  come 
haphazard.  The  effect  is  very  unique.  If  any  one  cares  to  spend 
time  upon  it,  a  centre  piece  and  border  may  be  worked  and  then  filled 
in  as  first  suggested.  Line  the  mat  with  a  piece  of  carpet  or  new 
ticking,  and  finish  it  with  fringe,  or  a  bright-colored  flannel  strip 
cut  in  scallops.  Worsted  fringe  which  has  been  worn  upon  a  dress 
and  put  away  may  be  used  for  this  purpose,  and  if  it  is  dark-colored 
brighten  it  up  by  tying  in  lengths  of  bright  worsted  of  the  various 
hues  in  the  mat. 

A  good  way  to  keep  the  earth  moist  in  a  hanging-basket  without 
the  trouble  of  taking  it  down  is  to  fill  a  bottle  with  water  and  put  in 
two  pieces  of  yarn,  leaving  one  end  outside  on  the  earth.  Suspend 
the  bottle  just  above  the  basket,  and  allow  the  water  to  drip;  this 
will  keep  the  earth  moist  enough  for  winter,  and  save  a  great  deal  of 
time  and  labor. 

Pretty  washstand  mats  may  be  made  of  white  felt  or  flannel,  bound 
with  a  broad  band  of  color  and  large  woollen  stars  roughly  worked 
all  over  in  the  color  of  the  binding — red,  blue  or  pink  may  be 
used ;  or  they  may  be  made  of  colored  sheeting  with  a  deep  woollen 
edging. 

Skeleton  leaves  may  be  made  by  steeping  leaves  in  rain-water  in 
an  open  vessel,  exposed  to  the  sun  and  air.  Water  must  occasionally 
be  added  to  compensate  loss  by  evaporation.  The  leaves  will  pu- 
trefy, and  then  their  membrane  will  begin  to  open  ;  then  lay  them  on 
a  clean  white  plate,  filled  with  water,  and  gently  take  off  the  mem- 
branes; separate  them  cautiously  near  the  middle  rib.  This  process 
requires  patience,  as  some  require  some  time  to  decay.  Purchase 
a  frame  with  a  box  six  inches  deep  and  fourteen  by  sixteen  (width 


250  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

and  length) ;  line  with  black  velvet.  Make  a  wreath  for  the  back, 
starting  either  side  at  the  bottom  of  the  box,  and  let  them  taper 
toward  the  top ;  make  this  of  the  largest  leaves.  Set  a  small  statue 
or  picture  in  front  of  this  wreath  ;  put  an  upright  post  on  either  side 
of  this  picture  a  little  shorter  than  the  wreath ;  and  towards  the  front 
two  other  smaller  standards.  Run  white  thread  from  back  to  front, 
on  which  glue  the  small  leaves,  and  fix  in  any  fantastical  way  you 
choose. 

The  method  of  executing  the  fashionable  and  pretty  tapestry- 
work  is  one  that  can  be  learned  without  any  difficulty,  and  it  will 
be  found  very  useful  for  very  many  purposes.  The  embroidery 
is  worked  in  Gobelin-stitch  over  silver  or  gold  braid,  which  closely 
covers  the  canvas.  Each  row  covers  two  threads,  and  is  fast- 
ened to  the  canvas  by  a  few  stitches  at  each  end.  The  embroid- 
ery is  then  worked  with  zephyr  wool  in  two  shades  of  red  in 
Gobelin-stitch.  To  do  the  work  neatly,  and  avoid  "  puckering," 
which  would  otherwise  follow,  the  canvas  should  be  placed  in  a 
frame.  » 

Cases  for  brushes,  combs  and  sponges  are  not  hard  to  make,  and 
useful  in  protecting  them  from  dust.  Brush  broom  cases  ornamented 
with  applique  work,  or  with  a  monogram  worked  in  silk,  or  with  a 
bunch  of  flowers,  are  very  pretty. 

An  excellent  imitation  of  carving,  suitable  for  frames,  boxes,  etc., 
may  be  made  of  a  description  of  leather  called  basil.  The  art  con- 
sists in  cutting  out  this  material  in  imitation  of  natural  objects,  and 
in  impressing  upon  it  by  simple  tools,  the  same  as  in  wax  flowers. 
Begin  with  a  simple  object — an  ivy-leaf,  for  instance.  Cut  the 
proper  shape,  and  impress  the  veins  upon  it ;  then  arrange  them  in 
groups,  when  you  have  sufficient,  on  the  frame.  The  tools  required 
are  ivory  or  steel  points  of  various  sizes,  punches  and  tin-shapes. 
Before  cutting  out  the  leaves,  the  leather  should  be  well  soaked 
in  water  until  it  is  quite  pliable.  When  dry  the  leaves  will  retain 
their  artistic  shape.  Leaves  and  stems  are  fastened  together  with 
glue,  and  varnished  when  dry,  or  you  may  varnish  with  sealing-wax 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION. 


251 


dissolved  in  spirits  of  wine.  Wire,  cork,  gutta-percha,  bits  of  stems, 
etc.,  may  severally  be  used  to  aid  in  the  formation  of  groups  of  buds 
and  seed-vessels,  etc. 

There  is  much  effort  made  nowadays  by  both  ladies  and  gentlemen 
to  collect  mineral  specimens,  shells  and  curiosities  for  a  cabinet. 
They  are  collected  by  parties  exchanging  their  duplicates  for  kinds 
they  do  not  possess.  After  one  has  been  exchanging  a  few  months 
a  good  collection  will  be  secured.  Those  who  have  but  a  few 
specimens  can  arrange  them  by  getting  a  wooden  box  which  has  a 
sliding  cover.  Remove  the  cover  and  cut  out  of  glass  one  that  will 
fit  the  box.  Apply  to  the  box  the  prepared  liquid  shoe-blacking, 
which,  by  using  two  coats,  will  make  a  good  imitation  of  black 
ebony,  or  logwood  chips  boiled  as  for  dyeing  purposes  brushed  on 
and  afterwards  brushed  over  with  vinegar  will  do  full  as  well. 
Varnish  with  transparent  varnish.  After  tl.e  exterior  of  the  box  is 
made  to  suit  you,  line  the  inside  with  red  flannel  by  cutting  out 
pieces  of  flannel  which  just  fit  the  sides  and  bottom  of  the  box;  then 
cover  with  glue  or  paste,  and  paste  or  glue  the  lining  in.  Place  in 
your  specimens  after  they  have  been  properly  labelled,  the  label 
giving  the  name,  its  locality  where  found  and  the  donor,  and  here  we 
have  a  nice  miniature  cabinet.  A  pretty  ornament  can  be  made  of  a 
few  specimens  of  minerals,  shells  and  curiosities  by  sawing  out  of 
pine  a  lyre  twelve  or  fourteen  inches  long ;  paint  the  wood,  and  after 
it  is  dry  cover  the  front  and  side  with  putty.  Then  arrange  the 
minerals,  etc.,  on  the  putty  after  the  fashion  you  would  shell-work ; 
for  strings  for  the  lyre  use  knitting  needles  fastened  into  the  putty ; 
fasten  a  strong  wire  on  the  back  forming  the  wire  in  the  shape  of  a 
large  hairpin  and  set  it  up  like  an  easel.  We  have  seen  a  little  work- 
box  or  jewelfy  casket  m.ade  by  glueing  bright  squares  of  velvet  on 
the  lids  and  sides  of  a  small  wooden  box,  and  around  the  velvet 
squares  various  ores,  shells  and  stones  were  stuck  on  with  a  cement ; 
the  inside  lined  with  silk  or  velvet,  and  when  completed  it  formed  a 
unique  and  pretty  ornament. 

The  best  cheap  material  for  portieres  is  canton  flannel,  which  is 


252  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

sold  in  the  stores  under  the  name  of  fashion  drapery,  for  about  ninety 
cents  a  yard.  It  is  soft  and  downy,  and  being  the  same  on  both  sides 
is  admirably  adapted  as  a  hanging  between  two  rooms.  It  is  easy  to 
trim  it  in  such  a  way  that  it  shall  suit  both  apartments ;  it  looks  well 
with  a  simple  border  of  darker  material  laid  on,  or  it  may  be  em- 
broidered in  crewels,  in  any  conventional  design.  It  can  be  bought 
in  all  colors  ^nd  hangs  in  very  soft  and  graceful  folds.  Portieres 
should  always  be  sewed  01/ to  rings,  and  suspended  from  a  pole,  so 
that  they  can  readily  be  drawn  back  at  will. 

Seaweeds  rank  among  the  most  beautiful  natural  objects,  while  the 
work  of  collection  and  mounting  is  delightful  occupation  for  the 
leisure  hour.  The  best  time  to  collect  is  when  the  tide  has  just 
commenced  to  flow,  after  the  lowest  ebb,  as  the  seaweeds  are  then  in 
good  condition.  Mounting  is  done  by  immersing  a  piece  of  paper 
just  below  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  supporting  it  by  the  left 
hand ;  the  algae  is  then  placed  on  the  paper  and  kept  in  its  place  by 
the  left  thumb,  while  the  right  hand  is  employed  in  spreading  out 
the  branches  with  a  bone  knitting-needle  or  a  camel-hair  pencil.  If 
the  branches  are  too  numerous,  which  will  be  readily  ascertained  by 
lifting  the  specimen  out  of  the  water  for  a  moment,  pruning  should 
be  freely  resorted  to,  as  much  of  its  beauty  will  depend  upon  the 
distinctness  of  the  branching.  Pruning  is  best  performed  by  cutting 
off  erect  and  alternate  branches,  by  means  of  a  sharp-pointed  pair  of 
scissors,  close  to  their  junction  with  the  main  stem.  When  the 
specimen  is  laid  out,  the  paper  should  be  raised  gradually  in  a  slightly 
sloping  direction,  care  being  taken  to  prevent  the  branches  from 
running  together.  The  delicate  species  are  much  improved  in 
appearance  by  reimmersing  their  extremities  before  entirely  with- 
drawing them  from  the  water.  The  papers  should  then  be  laid  flat 
upon  coarse,  bibulous  paper,  only  long  enough  to  absorb  superfluous 
moisture.  If  placed  in  an  oblique  direction,  the  branches  are  liable 
to  run  together.  They  should  then  be  removed  and  placed  upon  a 
sheet  of  thick  white  blotting  paper,  and  a  piece  of  washed  and  pressed 
calico  placed  over  each   specimen,  and  then  another  layer  of  thin 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION. 


253 


blotting  paper  above  the  calico.  Several  of  these  layers  are  pressed 
in  the  ordinary  way,  light  pressure  only  being  used  at  first.  The 
papers,  but  not  the  calico,  may  be  removed  in  six  hours,  and  after- 
wards changed  every  twenty-four  hours  until  dry.  If  the  calico  be 
not  washed,  it  frequently  adheres  to  the  algae,  and  if  the  calico  be 
wrinkled,  it  produces  corresponding  marks  on  the  paper.  The  most 
convenient  sizes  of  paper  to  use  are  those  made  by  cutting  a  sheet  of 
paper,  of  any  size,  into  sixteen,  twelve,  or  four  equal  pieces. 

Cut-work  is  revived  in  modern  artistic  needlework.  The  patterns 
are  in  the  quaint  designs  of  Venice  lace.  A  pure  white  or  ecru  linen 
is  chosen.  A  pillow-case  linen  with  an  even  thread  is  preferred,  and 
the  design  to  be  wrought  is  usually  stamped  as  a  border  and  is  oftener 
an  insertion  than  an  edge.  The  pattern  is  outlined  in  button-hole 
stitch  and  the  ground  of  the  design  is  then  cut  away  and  rich  trac- 
ing in  open  work  of  graceful  arabesques  and  flowers  left.  In  many 
of  the  English  castles  there  are  still  counterpanes  and  pillow-cases  in 
ancient  cut-work.  The  needlework  seems  naturally  adapted  for  this 
purpose.  A  counterpane  of  this  kind  of  work  thrown  over  a  tinted 
silk  or  satinet  quilt  would  be  much  richer  in  effect  than  those  so  often 
seen  in  antique  lace.  A  coverlet  copied  from  one  wrought  by  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots  would  be  charmingly  suggestive  of  Scottish  romance, 
and  probably  tasteful,  as  the  employment  of  high  art  in  needlework 
is  only  the  revival  of  an  ancient  practice.  Small  pieces,  like  doylies, 
are  often  wrought  with  a  border  of  cut-work,  but  a  rapid  worker  in 
button-hole  stitch  would  hardly  find  a  large  piece  of  this  work  tire- 
some, though  like  all  lace  work  it  lacks  the  relief  of  color.  The  Eng- 
lish revival  of  art  designs  has  put  in  the  reach  of  every  one  an  infinite 
number  of  exquisite  patterns  for  embroidery  in  South  Kensington 
stitch  and  outline  work.  The  details  of  these  artistic  stitches  are 
easily  mastered  by  an  ordinary  needlewoman,  but  if  desired,  instruc- 
tion can  readily  be  had  at  the  classes  for  this  purpose.  A  set  of 
doylies  is  an  excellent  selection  for  a  beginner.  If  one  or  two  are 
spoiled  in  the  first  attempts  no  great  loss  of  time  is  incurred,  as  the 
embroidery  of  one  doylie   is  little  work.     A  firm  white  linen  is  the 


254  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

material  chosen,  and  a  different  design  is  stamped  on  each  of  the  set. 
The  stitch  used  in  embroidery  is  South  Kensington.  The  patterns, 
which  are  in  Japanese  effect,  are  usually  wrought  in  solid  color  with 
bobbin  silk  or  crewels.  Nodding  grasses  and  a  flight  of  birds,  lilies, 
clusters  of  roses,  a  straying  vine  or  scraps  of  sea-weed,  are  some  of 
the  pretty  designs.  Ceramic  patterns,  showing  a  vase,  a  plaque  or 
teapot,  are  in  pure  Japanese  style,  and  are  worked  in  old  Nankin  blue. 
These  doylies  add  a  dainty  bit  of  color  to  the  after-dinner  cloth, 
placed  under  a  wineglass  or  a  fingerbowl.  The  tablecloth  used  with 
them  may  be  embroidered  around  the  edge  in  corresponding  designs, 
but  often  a  white  wine-cloth  with  a  double  border  woven  in  old  gold, 
ruby  or  Nankin  blue,  is  used  with  doylies  embroidered  in  a  similar 
color.  The  new  tidies  are  about  a  yard  in  length  by  half  a  yard  in 
breadth.  Soft  India  pongee  silk  is  now  used.  The  edges  of  the  silk 
are  hemstitched  the  desired  length,  and  the  ends  are  finished  with 
fringe.  A  vine  of  English  clematis  is  wrought  across  the  tidy  in  con- 
ventional color  to  suit  the  room,  or  is  embroidered  with  olive  leaves 
and  white  or  purple  flowers.  A  straggling  blackberry  vine  is  often 
used  for  decoration.  A  spray  of  golden-rod  or  sunflowers  would  be 
selected  for  a  room  furnished  in  oriental  yellow.  Rooms  in  this  color 
are  so  managed  by  English  art  decorators  that  they  seem  to  be  in  a 
continual  flood  of  golden  sunshine.  Figures  in  genre  style  are  often 
wrought  on  tidies  in  outline  work,  which  is  easily  done  and  is  very 
effective.  A  realistic  figure  is  the  pumpkin  girl,  a  buxom  beauty  who 
bears  in  her  arms  a  sample  of  the  yellow  fruit.  Though  the  pumpkin 
is  not  likely  yet  to  be  selected  as  an  ornamental  climber  for  garden 
trellis,  the  vine  that  strays  at  the  feet  of  the  girl  is  conventionalized 
into  something  like  beauty,  and  the  outline  curves  of  the  design  are 
suggestive  of  golden  October  days.  In  an  entirely  different  spirit  is 
the  slender  maiden  'neath  a  moonlit  sky  "  catching  lunar  moths." 
The  short  waist,  short  clinging  skirts  and  fluttering  scarf  of  the  cos- 
tume are  like  old  English  pictures  of  women  seen  in  the  "  Scottish 
Chiefs  "  and  books  of  that  time,  and  belong  to  the  sentimental  type 
of  woman,  of  whom  Mrs.  Hemans  sang  and  lady  novelists  of  her  day 
wrote. 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  255 

Pongee  silk  is  also  used  for  charming  little  work-aprons.  The 
bottom  is  turned  up  to  form  a  pocket,  and  a  ribbon  in  color  is  run 
through  the  hem  at  the  top  to  fasten  the  apron  around  the  waist. 
A  spray  of  Virginia  creeper  and  berries,  or  a  branch  of  carnations, 
is  embroidered  in  South  Kensington  stitch  across  the  pocket,  or  a 
few  long-stemmed  violets  are  scattered  over  the  apron.  Bureau  covers 
are  of  cream-white  momie  cloth.  They  are  embroidered  on  the  ends 
with  vines  and  powdered  through  the  centre  with  violets,  pink  rose 
petals  or  tiny  blue  love-in-the-nests,  or  scattered  with  rose-buds. 
The  decoration  and  color  are  chosen  in  reference  to  the  coloring  of  the 
room.  Wall  protectors,  for  the  backs  of  washstands,  are  wrought  in 
South  Kensington  stitch  with  crewels.  A  cream-white  buff  ecru  or 
gray  linen  is  selected  with  regard  to  the  prevailing  tint  of  the  wall. 
An  aquatic  scene  of  water  grasses  and  floating  pond  lilies  may  be 
chosen  for  embroidery,  and  in  place  of  the  suggestive  motto,  "  Clean 
hands  and  a  pure  heart,"  a  flight  of  birds  is  often  substituted.  Sub- 
marine scenes  for  the  same  use  show  swimming  fishes,  shells,  sea 
anemones  and  floating  sea-weed.  Pillow  protectors  or  "  shams  "  are 
of  white  linen,  and  are  usually  bordered  by  a  ruffle  of  sheer  linen  or 
a  frill  of  lace.  One  corner  of  the  sham  is  embroidered  with  sprays 
of  poppies  or  lotos  leaves,  and  the  words  "  pleasant  dreams  "  or  "  good 
night"  are  wrought  in  English  or  in  the  homelike  German  language, 
in  whose  rough  gutturals  there  is  always  a  rugged  sound  of  hos- 
pitality. 

A  merino  or  cashmere  dress  may  be  mended  neatly  by  wetting  a 
piece  of  court-plaster  of  exactly  the  same  shade  as  the  goods,  and 
putting  it  on  the  wrong  side,  pressing  down  every  frayed  edge  and 
every  thread,  and  laying  a  weight  on  it  until  it  is  thoroughly  dry. 

The  stitch  known  as  the  "  Kensington,"  or  "  South  Kensing- 
ton," and  used  in  what  is  called,  in  a  phrase  of  the  day,  "artistic 
embroidery,"  is  as  nearly  as  possible  no  definite  stitch  at  all,  but 
much  like  drawing  done  on  cloth  with  needle  and  thread,  a  single 
thread  stroke,  or  "  stitch,"  representing  each  pencil  stroke,  how- 
ever long  or  short,  only  that  curves,  of  course,  can  only  be  done 


256  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

by  a  succession  of  short  strokes  of  the  thread.  The  stitches  are 
mostly  made  in  the  "  back-stitch "  manner,  and  are  regulated  by 
no  rules  whatever,  either  as  to  length  or  direction,  but  by  the  eye 
alone,  the  object  being  to  produce  the  effect  of  the  design  in  the 
quickest  way.  It  is  done  with  embroidered  silks  or  worsteds  on 
articles  not  intended  ever  to  be  washed ;  can  be  made  very  effec- 
tive, and  is  not  at  all  tedious.  Any  one  able  to  use  a  needle  and 
thread  at  all  knows  all  the  mechanical  manipulation  necessary ;  but 
in  order  to  produce  the  beautiful  designs  given  in  the  fashion  or 
ladies'  magazines  for  borders,  etc.,  worked  in  this  stitch,  you  must  be 
able  to  copy  the  pattern  by  your  eye  alone,  as  in  drawing.  The 
very  useful  and  widely  adaptable  embroidery  stitch  now  called 
"  Kensington  outline  "  is  different  from  the  above,  being  produced 
by  a  succession  of  stitches  all  exactly  alike.  It  is  the  best  of  all 
stitches  for  the  pretty  outline  designs,  resembling  etchings,  now  so 
fashionable  for  working  with  colored  marking-cotton  on  handker- 
chiefs, table-napkins,  and  many  other  articles  destined  to  form  an 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  wash-tub.  These  designs  have  no 
filling  in,  all  that  is  worked  being  the  outlines  together  with  such 
lines  as,  in  a  pen  and  ink  drawing,  would  be  put  in  to  mark  the  folds 
of  drapery  and  so  forth.  Any  one  can  copy  a  little  outline  picture 
on  the  white  goods  where  it  is  to  be  worked,  by  placing  the  ^oods 
over  the  picture  (holding  against  the  window-pane,  if  necessary)  and 
marking  the  lines  with  a  lead-p'encil ;  then  all  you  have  to  do  is  to 
follow  the  pencil  marks  with  your  Kensington  outline.  A  line  of 
this  stitching  looks  on  the  right  side  like  a  small,  twisted  cord,  and 
on  the  wrong  side  appears  as  a  row  of  ordinary,  plain  hand-stitching. 
By  this  description  many  ladies  will  recognize  Kensington  outline 
stitch  as  only  a  new  name  for  their  old  friend  "  stem  "  or  "  cord  " 
stitch.  It  is  extremely  effective  on  even  the  most  ordinary  ma- 
terials. 

A  bag  for  soiled  clothes  may  be  made  of  Macrame  lace,  lined  with 
silk,  satin,  or  wool  goods.  The  lace  extends  only  two-thirds  of  the 
length  of  the  bag,  and  is  finished  with  a  ruche  of  satin  ribbon.     The 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  257 

bottom  is  completed  by  a  handsome  bow  of  ribbon  and  tassel  made 
of  the  thread  used  for  the  Macrame  lace.  Draw  up  the  bag  at  the 
top  with  silk  cord  and  tassels  the  shade  of  the  lining.  Very  pretty 
bags  are  also  made  of  blue  and  white  ticking,  the  blue  stripes  covered 
with  black  braid  feather-stitched  with  colored  wool,  and  the  white 
stripes  embroidered  with  bright-hued  wools  in  as  great  a  variety  of 
fancy  stitches  as  the  maker's  skill  can  compass.  A  plainer  style, 
much  liked  by  many  persons  who  wish  to  have  such  articles  fre- 
quently washed,  is  made  of  stout  brown  linen,  trimmed  with  rows 
of  scarlet  braid,  three-quarters  of  an  inch  wide,  feather-stitched  with 
black  wool.  These  rows  are  placed  an  inch  apart  and  may  be 
arranged  in  regular  order,  covering  the  bag  to  half  or  three-fourths 
of  its  depth,  or  in  three  groups  of  four  rows  each,  one  at  the  bottom, 
one  in  the  centre,  and  one  at  the  top  of  the  bag,  just  below  the 
drawing-string,  which  should  be  of  scarlet  braid  in  place  of  cord  and 
tassels. 

When  sewing  buttons  on  children's  clothes  where  there  will  be 
much  strain  on  the  button,  the  danger  of  tearing  the  cloth  out  will 
be  greatly  lessened  by  putting  a  small  button  directly  under  the 
larger  outside  button.  This  applies,  of  course,  only  to  buttons  with 
holes  through  them. 

The  beauty  of  netting  consists  in  its  firmness  and  regularity.  All 
joins  in  the  thread  must  be  made  in  a  very  strong  knot,  and,  if  pos- 
sible, at  an  edge,  so  that  it  may  not  be  perceived.  The  implements 
used  in  netting  are  a  netting-needle  and  a  mesh.  In  filling  a  netting- 
needle  with  the  material,  be  careful  not  to  make  it  so  full  that  there 
will  be  a  difficulty  in  passing  it  through  the  stitches.  The  size  of 
the  needle  must  depend  on  the  material  employed,  and  the  fineness 
of  the  work.  Steel  needles  are  employed  for  every  kind  of  netting 
except  the  very  coarsest.  The  fine  meshes  are  usually  also  of  steel ; 
but  as  this  material  is  heavy,  it  is  better  to  employ  bone  or  wooden 
meshes  when  large  ones  are  required.  Many  meshes  are  flat,  and  in 
using  them  the  width  is  given.  The  first  stitch  in  this  work  is 
termed  diamond  netting,  the  holes  being  in  the  form  of  diamonds. 
«7 


?58  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

To  do  the  first  row,  a  stout  thread,  knotted  to  form  a  round,  is 
fastened  to  the  knee  with  a  pin,  or  passed  over  the  foot  or  on  a  hook, 
sometimes  attached  to  a  work-cushion  for  the  purpose.  The  end  of 
the  thfv^ad  on  the  needle  is  knotted  to  this,  the  mesh  being  held  in 
the  left  hand  on  a  line  with  it.  Take  the  needle  in  the  right  hand, 
let  the  thread  come  over  the  mesh  and  the  third  finger,  bring  it  back 
under  the  mesh,  and  hold  it  between  the  thumb  and  first  finger.  Slip 
the  needle  through  the  loop  over  the  third  finger,  under  the  mesh 
and  the  foundation  thread.  In  doing  this  a  loop  will  be  formed, 
which  must  be  passed  over  the  fourth  finger ;  withdraw  the  third 
finger  from  the  loop,  and  draw  up  the  loop  over  the  fourth  gradually 
until  it  is  quite  tight  on  the  mesh.  The  thumb  should  be  kept  firmly- 
over  the  mesh  while  the  stitch  is  being  completed.  When  the  neces- 
sary number  of  stitches  is  made  on  this  foundation,  the  future  rows 
are  to  be  workc-d  backward  and  forward.  To  form  a  round  the  first 
stitch  is  to  be  worked  immediately  after  the  last,  which  closes  the 
netting  into  a  circle.  Round  netting  is  very  nearly  the  same  stitch, 
the  difference  is  merely  in  the  way  of  putting  the  needle  through 
the  loop  and  foundation,  or  other  stitch.  After  passing  the  needle 
through  the  loop  it  must  be  brought  out  and  put  downwards  through 
the  stitch.  This  stitch  is  particularly  suited  for  purses.  Square 
netting  is  exactly  the  same  stitch  as  diamond  netting,  only  it  is  begun 
at  a  corner  on  one  stitch  and  increased  (by  doing  two  in  one)  in  the 
last  stitch  of  every  row  until  the  greatest  width  required  is  attained. 
Then  by  netting  two  stitches  together  at  the  end  of  every  row,  the 
piece  is  decreased  to  a  point  again.  When  stretched  out  all  the  holes 
in  this  netting  are  squares.  Square  and  diamond  netting  are  the 
most  frequently  used,  and  are  ornamented  with  patterns  darned  on 
them  in  simple  darning  or  in  various  point  stitches ;  in  the  latter 
case  it  forms  a  variety  of  the  sort  of  work  termed  guipure.  Stitches 
in  netting  are  always  counted  by  knots. 

Fireplace  curtains  are  often  only  half  a  yard  wide,  and  just  long 
enough  to  touch  the  floor,  but  then  again  rep  ones  with  a  worsted 
worked  border  are  much  fuller.     For  stamped  velveteen  we  should 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  259 

say  from  three-quarters  to  one  yard,  according  to  the  size  of  the 
mantel-piece,  would  be  enough.  Dark  blue,  outlined  with  gold,  will 
be  very  handsome;  the  mantel  border  should  be  about  six  or  eight 
inches,  but  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  say  decidedly  the  best  propor- 
tions for  such  things  when  we  are  ignorant  of  the  dimensions  of  the 
room,  or  even  of  the  fireplace.  Mantel  shelves  now  never  have  the 
valance  put  on  separately  from  the  top ;  it  is  all  one,  and  only  the 
corners  are  shaped  out  by  a  seam  around  the  mantel  ends.  Fringes 
are  out  of  fashion  in  a  great  measure,  and,  as  often  as  not,  the  border 
is  only  hemmed  up  underneath,  or  a  cord  laid  along  it.  Chenille 
cord,  or  ordinary  chenille  like  that  put  round  glass  ornament  shades, 
often  looks  better  than  silk  cords  on  velvet. 

A  pretty  pen-wiper  is  made  of  six  pieces  of  flannel,  two  brown, 
two  red  and  two  green,  in  the  shape  of  a  beech  leaf  Nip  the  edge 
of  each  leaf  into  very  tiny  points  and  chain-stitch  veins  upon  it  in 
gold-colored  floss.  Attach  these  leaves  together  at  their  upper  ends 
arranging  under  them  three  pointed  leaves  of  black  broadcloth  or 
silk,  to  receive  the  ink,  and  finish  the  top  with  a  bow  of  ribbon. 

A  very  pretty  scrap-bag,  for  sitting-room  or  bed-room,  is  made  in 
a  simple  manner  by  taking  a  good-sized  Japanese  parasol,  or  small 
umbrella:  take  a  piece  of  fine  wire  and  make  in  a  ring,  catch  it  to 
the  partly-opened  parasol  with  thread,  tie  a  bright  ribbon  to  the 
handle.  Of  course,  this  is  serviceable  only  for  bits  of  paper  and 
light  scraps. 

To  wind  a  watch,  turn  the  hole  downward,  and  let  the  small  end 
of  the  key  point  upward.  This  will  allow  any  little  particles  of  dirt, 
metal  or  dust  to  drop  out,  and  the  watch  will  not  need  cleaning  so 
often. 

There  are  many  new  and  pretty  designs  for  perfume  and  glove  aijd 
handkerchief  sachets.  One  for  gloves  may  have  on  the  back  the 
half  of  a  long  kid  glove,  applied  to  satin,  all  the  seams  being  elab- 
orately worked  in  colored  silks  in  small  flowers,  with  two  narrow 
floral  bracelets  above.  Another  sachet  has  two  peacock  feathers  em- 
broidered with  silk,  on  a  ground  of  pale  blue  satin,  with  a  deep  red 


26o  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

ribbon  attached,  which  is  "  appliqued  on  "  with  gold  thread.  "  Bon 
jour  "  was  worked  on  one  end  with  gold  letters.  Just  now  one  finds 
the  legend  "  bon  jour  "  painted  or  embroidered  on  all  sorts  of  pretty 
fancy  articles.  Sprays  of  jessamine  seem  to  be  most  in  favor  for 
painting  or  embroidery  this  season,  and  are  pretty  ornamentations  for 
blotting-books  of  black,  dark  red  or  rich  blue  satin.  Another  blotter 
design  has  a  simulated  pen,  worked  slantwise,  with  the  letters  of 
a  name  apparently  strung  on;  a  small  spray  of  flowers  is  found 
in  the  corners. 

Beautiful  coverings  for  chairs,  ottomans,  sofa  pillows  and  screens, 
and  drapings  for  tables  and  doors,  are  secured  by  working  over  the 
designs  on  these  materials  in  silks  and  crewels.  The  color  of  the 
design  beneath  is  immaterial,  but  the  colors  used  in  the  embroidery 
depend  upon  the  general  tone  of  the  ground.  This  embroidery  is,  of 
course,  not  closely  wrought.  The  form  is  usually  outlined  and  indi- 
cated by  long  stitches  of  various  colors,  giving  the  effect  of  the 
innumerable  dyes  used  in  Persian  and  Indian  goods,  and,  after  a 
little  practice  and  skill  in  choosing  the  colors,  can  be  very  quickly 
done. 

To  make  rag  rugs,  cut  rags  and  sew  hit-and-miss,  or  fancy  striped, 
as  you  choose.  Use  wooden  needles,  round,  smooth  and  pointed 
at  one  end,  of  any  convenient  length.  The  knitting  is  done  back 
and  forth  (like  old-fashioned  suspenders),  always  taking  off  the  first 
stitch. 

Shoe  pockets  are  made  of  about  two  and  a  half  yards  of  calico, 
one  yard  of  which  makes  the  back,  to  be  tacked  to  the  door  when 
done.  Split  the  remaining  yard  and  a  half  in  two,  lengthwise,  and, 
placing  the  slips  about  one  inch  apart,  make  across  the  back  three 
rows  of  pockets,  by  stitching  first  the  ends  of  the  strips  to  the  sides 
of  the  back,  and  then  gather  the  bottom  of  each  strip  to  fit  the  back ; 
then  separate  each  strip  into  two,  three  or  four  pockets,  according 
to  the  use  for  which  they  are  designed,  and  fasten  by  stitching  a 
narrow  "  piping  "  of  calico  from  top  to  bottom  of  the  back  between 
the  pockets.     A  border  of  leather  sewed  on  the  edges  of  the  back, 


HOUSEHOLD    ORNAMENTATION.  26l 

and  a  narrow  strip  used  instead  of  the  calico  "  piping,"  make  the 
whole  much  stronger. 

To  make  a  case  for  comb  and  brush;  take  some  Holland,  drill  or 
ticking,  cut  in  one  piece  ten  inches  wide  and  twenty-five  in  length, 
each  end  turned  up  five  and  one-half  inches,  leaving  a  plain  piece 
in  the  centre  of  three  inches.  Ornament  with  an  embroidered  vine ; 
fasten  together  with  ribbon  strings. 

A  "lace  album"  contains  either  a  specimen,  or  painted  imitation  of 
a  specimen,  of  all  the  kinds  of  real  lace  issued  since  the  manufacture 
of  lace  began.  The  whole  of  a  design  must  be  given.  Fragments  of 
real  lace  of  family  interest,  as  having  been  worn  by  remote  ancestry, 
are  introduced,  each  one  being  labelled  with  the  name  of  the  lace  and 
the  noted  occasions  on  which  it  was  worn.  The  album  leaves  are  of 
satin,  so  as  to  better  display  the  pattern.  When  it  is  possible  to  pro- 
cure a  fragment  of  lace  worn  by  some  great  celebrity,  the  autograph, 
too,  is  obtained  if  possible. 

Some  little  contrivances  which  have  added  much  to  the  appearance 
and  comfort  of  the  dressing-room  are  as  follows :  When  a  room  does 
not  happen  to  contain  a  hanging  wardrobe,  an  excellent  substitute 
may  be  effected  by  means  of  a  set  of  those  portable  folding  pegs, 
which  can  be  bought  for  a  very  small  sum,  fastened  to  the  wall  by 
strong  nails.  But  dresses  and  cloaks  are  not  sightly  objects  when 
hung  up ;  and  if  not  covered,  they  catch  the  dust  in  a  manner  very 
detrimental  to  their  preservation.  Make  a  cretonne  curtain  (a  light 
ground  is  the  best)  the  required  width  and  length,  with  several  cur- 
tain rings  at  the  top.  Then  procure  at  any  hardware  dealer's  two 
of  those  little  brass  hooks  to  screw  into  the  wall,  which  are  used 
for  hanging  up  cups  in  china  closets — the  largest  size  of  these — and 
a  strong  piece  of  cane  about  three-quarters  of  a  yard  long.  Screw  in 
the  hooks  just  over  the  pegs,  run  the  cane  through  the  curtain  rings 
and  fasten  it  up,  the  two  hooks  supporting  each  end.  Thus  a  port- 
able hanging  wardrobe  is  at  once  made,  and  when  the  room  is  swept 
nothing  need  be  done  save  to  turn  the  flowing  curtain  inside  out  and 
pin  it  tightly  round  the  dresses  underneath  it.     When  there  are  pegs 


262  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

behind  the  door  the  same  sort  of  curtain  can  be  put  up  and  has  all 
the  appearance  of  a  portiere.  The  cretonne  should  match  the  window 
curtains  and  harmonize  as  ijiuch  as  possible  with  the  shade  of  the 
carpet  and  the  whole  tone  of  the  room.  Boxes  and  trunks,  which 
never  look  well  in  a  bedroom  in  their  natural  state,  may  be  converted 
into  ottomans  by  cretonne  covers,  made  to  fit  loosely  and  take  off 
and  on.  A  flat  piece  lined  for  the  top  of  the  box,  a  piping  cord  round, 
and  a  loose  flounce  gathered  on,  is  the  best  way  to  make  them.  And 
when  curtains,  box  covers,  portiere,  and  hanging  wardrobes  are  all 
made  of  the  same  pretty  light  cretonne  to  match,  the  effect  is  very 
good.  When  "  doing  up  "  a  bedroom  it  is  well  to  buy  as  many  yards 
of  cretonne  as  you  are  likely  to  want  at  first,  in  case  of  not  being 
afterwards  able  to  match  the  pattern.  Nothing  looks  worse  than  a 
"  patchy "  room,  and  the  idea  should  be  fully  carried  out  or  not 
attempted  at  all. 


FLORICULTUp^iND  H0]^TICULTU1|E, 

O  improvement  is  more  marked  in  the  modern  home  than 
the  prominence  which  is  being  more  and  more  assigned  _, 
to  the  cultivation  of  flowers.  This  taste  is  a  develop- 
ment of  the  general  sense  of  beauty  and  picturesqueness 
which  is  one  of  the  best  signs  of  a  pure,  healthy  and 
intellectual  life.  A  few  years  ago  it  was  a  rare  thing  to  find  flowers 
in  the  windows  and  on  the  tables  of  any  but  the  wealthiest  classes  in 
America.  Hothouse  flowers  were  purchased  by  the  wealthy  because 
they  were  costly,  and  the  more  they  cost  the  more  necessary  they 
were  deemed.  But  for  any  but  the  rich,  flowers  were  deemed  little 
more  than  litter,  or,  at  any  rate,  were  not  thought  of  as  among  the 
most  beautiful  adornments  and  attractions  of  the  simple  home.  Now 
they  are  prized  in  every  household,  and  so  universal  is  the  apprecia- 
tion of  them  becoming  in  all  English-speaking  communities,  that 
there  are  societies  of  benevolent  ladies  in  almost  every  city  for  sup- 
plying hospitals  and  sick-rooms  and  the  dwellings  of  the  poor  with 
flowers. 

Next  to  the  necessaries  of  life  are  those  little  comforts  to  the  senses 
which  "  adorn  and  cheer  the  way."  It  is  wonderful  how  much  the 
senses  of  sight  and  smell  have  to  do  with  tranquillity  of  mind,  aspira- 
tion after  all  that  is  good  and  noble,  patience  under  present  gloom 
and  hope  of  future  welfare.  Hearing  may  reveal  things  to  us  on  a 
grand  scale.  The  sound  of  martial  music  may  thrill  the  soul  with 
more  sudden  impulse  and  stronger  energy.  But  the  sight  and  per- 
fume of  flowers  has  a  quiet  power  of  beneficence  over  the  feelings, 
which  makes  bare  walls  seem  fairyland  and  "  the  wilderness  to  blos- 
som as  the  rose."     To  all  thoughtful  minds,  they  have  ever  been 

(263) 


264  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

emblems  and  types  of  qualities,  virtues  and  blessings.  The  purest 
mind  that  ever  pondered  the  great  parable  of  nature  saw  in  the  lilies 
of  the  field  a  beauty  which  Solomon  arrayed  in  all  his  glory  could 
not  equal.  The  language  of  flowers  is  a  language  that  speaks  directly 
to  the  heart.     Even  if 

"A  primrose  by  the  river's  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 
And  it  was  nothing  more," 

it  was  a  great  deal,  for  the  most  stolid  and  matter-of-fact  observer 
cannot  take  from  the  flowers  their  divine  gift  of  beauty.  No  sight 
is  prettier  than  that  of  children  gathering  wild  flowers,  in  pure  enjoy- 
ment of  their  beauty,  in  the  natural  gardens  planted  by  the  Father's 
hand.  The  love  of  flowers  is  a  redeeming  feature  in  characters  other- 
wise unamiable,  if,  indeed,  any  but  the  amiable  can  love  objects  and 
possessions  so  pure  and  beautiful.  They  suggest  beauty  and  har- 
mony, virtue  and  peace.  They  are  full  of  what  Matthew  Arnold 
calls  "  sweetness  and  light."  The  tired  sight  finds  rest  and  recrea- 
tion in  the  variegated  colors  and  beautiful  arrangements  of  a  garden. 

,  Through  the  eye  the  fancy,  and  the  higher  faculty  than  fancy,  imagi- 
nation, is  gently  stimulated.  We  turn  back  to  look  again  at  the 
beautiful  rose-bed,  or  the  other  flowers  majestic,  or  simple  and  re- 
tiring, which  recall  to  us  some  scene  or  feeling  of  the  past.  As  aids 
to  memory,  flowers  are  to  some  minds  more  powerful  than  music. 
The  familiar  flower  appeals  through  the  eye  as  the  familiar  melody 
does  through  the  ear  to  the  memory  of  the  past.  Memory  is  itself  a 
flower-garden  where  good  deeds  and  kindly  affections  blossom  as  we 
look  back.  And  even  more  vividly  to  the  sensitive  imagination  are 
the  happy  pictures  of  the  past  recalled  by  the  perfume  than  the  aspect 
of  a  favorite   flower.      The   air   made  aromatic    by  the  flower-beds 

^seems  to  waft  us  back  to  the  days  of  other  years,  and  perhaps  other 
countries,  where  the  same  perfume  made  some  special  scene,  event, 
f)r  person  eternal  in  our  memory.  Some  one  we  loved  may  be  im- 
pressed upon  our  remembrance  chiefly  by  a  flower.  Hence  there 
•was  true  philosophy  in  Shakespeare's  letting  poor  Ophelia  deck  her- 


FLORAL  WINDOW. 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE,  265 

self  with  flowers,  which  she  makes  emblems  of  the  past  and  of  the 
feelings  of  the  heart.  Every  one  must  be  conscious,  on  first  entering 
a  garden  or  a  room  in  which  beautiful  flowers  strike  the  eye  and  their 
fragrance  rises  to  the  brain,  of  a  change  in  inward  feeling,  a  throwing 
off  of  thought-burdens  and  a  taking  on  of  pleasanter  feelings  and  ideas. 
No  ambition  is  more  noble  in  an  humble  toiler  for  daily  bread  than 
that  of  having  a  little  garden  as  well  as  a  home  of  his  own.  The  road 
of  life  would  be  far  gloomier  and  harder  than  it  is  if  there  were  no 
flowery  meads  along  the  way ;  no  perfumes  to  exalt  and  purify  the 
thoughts  from  the  dull  routine  and  murky  atmosphere  of  a  world 
which  seems  divided  between  work  and  want — all  but  the  oases  in 
the  desert,  the  flower-gardens  and  the  incense-laden  plants  of  beauty 
that  spring  up  like  visions  of  Eden  regardened  by  a  restored  gardener. 
For  man's  first,  happiest  and  healthiest  employment  was  the  "  sweet 
gardening  toil "  which  God  gave  him  for  his  pastime  in  Paradise. 
Toil-worn,  foot-sore  and  hand-stained  as  the  wanderer  from  that  first 
garden  of  peace  and  plenty  may  be,  we  shall  never  find  a  home,  how- 
ever humble,  in  which  a  garden  is  well  kept  and  cheers  the  roadside, 
or  flowers  adorn  the  windows  and  shed  their  fragrance  through  the 
rooms,  inhabited  by  vice  and  vit)lence.  The  flowers  soon  wither  in 
a  drunkard's  home.  The  hand  uplifted  in  anger  cannot  trim  the 
flower-beds ;  the  fairest  plant  would  wither  at  the  touch  of  hatred, 
lying  and  envy;  there  must  be  love  and  friendship,  truth  and  sanctity 
in  the  home  in  which  flowers  grow.  Else  men  and  women  would 
not  use  them  as  nature's  emblems  and  adornments  to  wreathe  the 
bridal  feast  and  shed  the  hope  of  reunion  in  a  brighter  world  upon 
the  obsequies  of  the  loved  and  lost.  As  home  is  happy,  the  weeds 
become  extinct  and  the  flowers  bloom  in  greater  beauty  and  abun- 
dance. When  selfishness  and  sin  have  spoiled  the  Eden  of  home 
life,  the  roses  die,  the  violets  fade,  "  presently  the  fig  tree  withers 
away,"  only  the  bare  boughs  with  "  nothing  but  leaves  "  are  left  upon 
the  roof-tree  of  happiness,  duty  and  contentment. 

The  following  general  directions  for  the  information  and  guidance 
pf  such  lovers  of  flowers  as  desire  and  have  occasion  to  cultivate  and 


266  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;     OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

tend  them  in  the  home  will  be  found  useful.     These  directions  refer 
only  to  the  simplest  flowers  and  those  easiest  to  cultivate. 

With  proper  care  and  attention,  roses  can  be  grown  in  a  satisfac- 
tory manner  in  the  conservatory  or  drawing-room.  To  that  end, 
commence  operations  by  throwing  away  all  the  old,  scraggy  plants 
you  have  had  in  pots  for  years,  and  commence  anew.  Then  get 
some  new  plants.  The  best  are  those  that  have  been  growing  in 
the  open  border  for  one  or  two  years.  Take  any  hybrid  perpetual, 
tea,  Bourbon  or  noisette,  one  that  has  had  a  good  freezing  and  at  rest. 
Take  up  carefully,  so  as  not  to  injure  the  roots,  and  pot  in  a  strong, 
rich  soil.  The  best  is  well-rotted  turf,  three  parts,  and  well-rotted 
manure,  from  the  cow-stable,  one  part.  Any  new  soil — that  which 
underlies  the  sod  of  a  meadow — is  good.  Avoid  soil  from  the  vege- 
table garden  or  from  the  woods.  Choose  a  heavy  clay  in  preference 
to  a  light,  sandy  soil.  A  heavy,  sweet  loam  is  the  more  desirable.  In 
choosing  pots,  take  those  that  will  comfortably  hold  the  roots,  which 
should  be  shortened  with  sharp  pruning  shears  or  knife,  say  one-third 
the  length.  Be  careful  to  have  the  roots  evenly  distributed  through 
the  pot,  press  the  earth  firmly  around  the  roots,  and  thoroughly 
water.  As  soon  as  potted,  or  before,  if  more  convenient,  the  plant 
must  be  well  pruned  or  cut  back.  This  point  is  one  of  the  essentials 
in  rose  culture  and  must  not  be  overlooked.  It  is  a  simple  thing  to 
show  one  how  to  prune  the  rose;  but  a  difficult  task  to  tell  how  to 
do  it  properly.  New  wood  of  nearly  all  roses  usually  starts  from 
the  root.  In  that  case  cut  back  to  within  four  inches  of  the  ground. 
If  the  new  growth — that  of  the  past  year — has  started  from  above 
the  root,  cut  still  closer — say  to  within  two  inches  of  the  old  wood. 
Do  not  in  any  case  leave  any  old  wood  for  the  purpose  of  flowering. 
When  the  young  wood  starts  from  the  root  cut  the  old  entirely  away. 
Set  the  pots  in  a  cool,  dark  room  or  cellar,  where  they  should  re- 
main four  weeks,  unless  in  the  meantime  they  commence  rapid 
growth,  in  which  case  they  should  be  brought  into  full  light  and 
heat.  After  the  watering  the  plant  received  when  potted,  no  more  is 
required  until  brought  to  the  light.     At  this  point  much  care  is  to  be 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE.  267 

observed.  Give  no  more  than  is  actually  necessary.  During  the 
first  stages  of  growth  absorption  by  the  plant  is  slow.  Increase  the 
amount  as  the  growth  increases.  As  soon  as  the  first  leaves  are  fully 
developed,  sprinkle  every  morning  with  tepid  water.  From  this  time 
onward  give  the  plants  all  the  light  and  sun  possible.  Do  not  let 
them  get  a  chill,  neither  draughts  of  cold  air,  which  will  surely  cause 
mildew,  from  which  plants  rarely  recover.  When  the  room  needs 
ventilation,  lower  the  windows  only  sufficient  for  the  purpose.  As 
long  as  artificial  heat  is  used,  do  not  raise  the  windows  to  admit 
warm  air  from  outside,  even  though  the  temperature  is  higher  than 
within.  As  a  preventive  of  mildew,  the  plant  should  be  lightly 
dusted  once  a  week  with  the  flour  of  sulphur.  Should  the  green  fly 
{aphis)  put  in  an  appearance,  immediate  steps  toward  its  destruc- 
tion must  be  taken  by  fumigation,  which,  as  a  rule,  is  inconvenient 
in  the  living  room,  or  dipping  the  plant  in  strong  soap-suds  and 
rinsing  with  clean  water.  Follow  this  plan  daily  as  long  as  it  is 
a  necessity. 

There  is  no  more  destructive  enemy  of  the  rose  tree  than  the  slug 
or  worm  that  eats  the  varnish  that  nature  has  spread  upon  the  upper 
side  of  the  leaf,  causing  bushes  to  look  often  much  as  though  the  fire 
had  singed  them.  These  little  worms  should  be  met  and  conquered 
at  once  as  soon  as  they  make  their  appearance.  A  sure  remedy  is 
pulverized  white  hellebore.  Put  two  ounces  into  six  gallons  of  water, 
and  with  a  brush-broom  give  the  bushes  a  sprinkling,  bending  them 
so  as  to  wet  the  leaves  on  both  sides.  It  may  possibly  require  two 
or  three  applications. 

A  PRETTY  and  easily-grown  window  plant  maybe  obtained  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner:  soak  a  round  piece  of  coarse  sponge  in  warm  water 
until  it  has  thoroughly  expanded.  After  squeezing  it  about  half  dry, 
place  in  the  openings  millet,  red  clover,  and  barley-grass  seeds,  rice  and 
oats.  Hang  the  sponge  in  a  window  where  the  sun  shines  a  part  of 
the  day,  and  sprinkle  it  lightly  with  water  every  morning  for  a  week. 
Soon  tender  leaves  will  shoot  out,  and,  growing  rapidly,  will  form  a 
drooping  mass  of  living  green.  If  regularly  sprinkled  it  will  later  be 
dotted  with  the  blossoms  of  the  clover. 


268  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

To  Preserve  Rose  Buds. — Cover  the  freshly  cut  stems  with  wax. 
Place  each  one  in  a  paper  cone  or  cap  so  that  the  leaves  do  not  touch 
the  paper.  The  cap  should  be  sealed  up  with  glue  to  prevent  air, 
dust,  or  moisture  from  entering.  When  the  glue  is  dry  it  should  be 
placed  in  a  cool  place.  When  wanted,  cut  off  the  waxed  end  and 
place  in  water,  where  it  will  bloom  in  a  few  hours. 

Watering  Window  Plants. — There  is  nothing  that  seems  to 
bother  more  those  who  would  grow  window  flowers  than  how  often  to 
water  them.  It  is  an  exceedingly  simple  thing  to  those  who  have  had 
experience,  though  so  mysterious  a  thing  to  those  who  have  had 
none.  When  the  skilled  gardener  is  asked  for  advice  he  says,  "  Water 
only  when  the  plants  need  it,"  but  this  tells  the  inquirer  nothing. 
There  still  remains  to  be  understood  how  to  tell  when  plants  need 
water.  After  all,  this  is  a  species  of  knowledge  that  cannot  well  be 
taught  by  another.  It  has  to  be  learned  from  experience.  The  good 
plant  cultivator  tells  from  the  color  of  the  earth ;  but  even  this  is  a 
relative  term.  There  is  dark  soil  and  there  is  light  soil ;  but  all  soils 
are  darker  when  they  are  wet  than  when  dry.  One  can  soon  learn 
this  by  experimenting  a  little;  and  can  soon  tell  whether  the  earth  is 
dry  or  wet  by  the  eye  or  finger  alone.  If  it  is  wet  it  of  course  wants 
no  more  water;  if  much  lighter  than  its  usual  color,  the  earth  is 
dry  and  needs  some.  It  is  an  exceedingly  simple  matter  to  those 
who  will  try  to  learn;  to  those  who  cannot  learn  themselves  it  is  a 
hopeless  task.  There  is  one  hint  that  we  may  give  that  may  be  of 
value.  If  the  earth  never  gets  dry,  the  plants  are  not  in  good  con- 
dition. Something  is  wrong.  It  is  the  active,  growing,  working 
roots  that  take  the  moisture  out  of  the  earth.  It  is  a  sign  of  good 
health  for  the  plant  to  want  frequent  watering. 

Window  Gardening. — Among  the  difficulties  that  beset  window 
gardening  in  the  winter  are:  i.  Lack  of  room.  Most  window  gar- 
deners use  by  far  too  large  pots.  Four  or  five  inch  pots  will  do  for 
nearly  all  the  plants  usually  grown.  When  the  plants  are  lifted  in 
the  fall,  cut  back  sharply.  Remove  nearly  every  leaf  and  all  flower 
buds ;  then  reduce  the  ball  of  earth  to  three  or  four  inches  in  diame- 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE. 


269 


ter,  and  pot  accordingly.  Give  the  plant  a  cool,  shady  place  till  well 
started,  then  place  in  your  window.  Water  occasionally  with  weak 
liquid  manure.  Geraniums  and  roses  intended  for  the  garden  in  the 
spring  can  thus  be  kept  in  large  numbers,  but  without  expectation 
of  profuse  bloom.  2.  Lack  of  flowers.  The  only  remedy  is  to  keep 
just  that  number  of  plants  that  you  can  give  full  light  and  keep  near 
the  glass,  with  the  temperature  ranging  from  fifty  to  seventy  or  a  little 
more.  A  few  plants  will  bloom  well  somewhat  back  from  the  window, 
but  heliotropes,  geraniums,  bouvardias,  roses,  require  abundance  of 
sunshine.  3.  Abundance  of  bugs.  These  are  natural  scavengers 
provided  to  prevent  you  from  being  poisoned  by  sick  plants.  They 
indicate  false  conditions  of  growth.  The  affected  plant  is  rotting  at 
the  roots  from  standing  water  or  lack  of  drainage,  or  it  is  sick  for 
want  of  sunshine.  Bugs  abound  out-of-doors  where  there  is  damp 
shade  or  a  tree  disturbed  in  its  adjustment  of  root  and  branch. 
Doctor  your  plants  and  lice  will  generally  vanish.  Red  spiders  ap- 
pear only  where  the  atmosphere  is  too  dry.  Dust  and  dirt  on  the 
leaves,  closing  the  pores,  also  induce  diseases  and  calls  in  the  scav- 
engers. 4.  Damping-off  and  mildew.  This  is  due  to  a  false  system 
of  watering,  in  connection  with  the  low  state  of  atmosphere.  Great 
mistakes  are  made  in  watering.  It  seems  nearly  impossible  to 
induce  some  plant  lovers  from  trying  to  grow  all  their  plants  in  a 
marsh.  Few  plants  can  endure  standing  in  a  soil  constantly 
drenched,  or  in  saucers  of  water.  Less  damage  is  done  by  drouth 
than  by  over-watering.  A  good  rule  is  to  thoroughly  drench  the 
soil  once  in  two  days,  using  water  but  little  warmer  than  the  tem- 
perature of  the  room.  Geraniums  especially  revolt  from  superfluous 
water.  Ageratums  and  heliotropes  just  as  decidedly  protest  against 
being  in  the  least  dried.  The  difficulties  of  damping-off  and  mildew 
are  also  fostered  by  the  exceedingly  rich  soil  som.etimes  used.  It 
should  be  remembered  that  a  plant  or  tree  can  be  made  dyspeptic. 

Geraniums,  as  a  general  thing,  are  wonderfully  accommodating 
plants.  They  will  grow  almost  anywhere  and  bear  a  great  amount 
of  ill-treatment  and  even  neglect     These  remarks  are,  however,  more 


2/0  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

applicable  to  those  of  the  so-called  zonale  varieties,  which  require 
plenty  of  sunlight  and  abundance  of  room  to  spread  themselves.  If 
grown  in  small  pots,  so  that  the  roots  will  be  cramped,  they  will  bloom 
much  quicker.  One  of  the  commonest  errors  of  the  amateur  florists 
consists  in  the  belief  that  the  larger  pot  you  give  a  plant  just  so 
much  the  better  it  will  grow.  Now  here  is  the  folly  of  the  thing. 
If  you  give  them  a  great  deal  of  soil,  of  necessity  the  earth  will  be- 
come sour,  because,  in  order  to  keep  the  soil  moist,  you  will  have  to 
give  more  water  than  the  plant  can  use. 

How  TO  Preserve  Flowers  in  Sand. — While  our  art  lovers 
warmly  applaud  all  successful  efforts  to  represent  nature  for  the  adorn- 
ment of  our  homes,  the  art  of  imprisoning  real  bits  of  nature  for  the 
same  purpose  is  not  sufficiently  studied.  The  neglect  of  some  of 
the  pretty  means  of  installing  art  in  our  homes  is  greatly  observable 
in  the  preparation  of  flowers  and  leaves  of  all  kinds  for  winter  use. 
As  usually  pressed,  they  are  flat  and  unnatural,  and  their  fibres  being 
packed  closely  and  forced  into  straight  lines,  are  extremely  brit- 
tle. In  the  pretty  ferns  and  autumn  leaves,  their  delicate  veinings 
are  obliterated,  and  their  characteristic  dimples  conventionalized 
away,  while  a  pressed  rose  is  no  more  like  a  rose  than  your  best 
friend  would  be  like  herself  if  passed  between  the  rollers  of  a  paper 
mill.  The  best  plan,  but  one  which  is  not  generally  known,  or  used, 
is  to  press  in  sand,  and  this  can  be  done  as  follows:  Procure  nice, 
clean,  dry  sand,  white  is  preferable,  and  for  white  flowers  indispensa- 
ble, if  their  pure  tone  would  be  retained.  Pluck  your  flowers  as 
freshly  blown  as  possible,  that  they  may  contain  plenty  of  sap;  in 
most  cases  remove  the  stems,  as  they  take  up  too  much  room,  are 
not  easily  managed,  and  when  dry  do  not  carry  the  flowers  as  well  as 
wire  stems.  Cover  the  bottom  of  the  box  with  sand,  then,  resting 
the  stem  part  of  a  flower  thereon,  and  letting  each  petal  fall  in  its 
natural  position,  fill  its  every  interstice  with  sand,  at  the  same  time 
that  you  build  up  evenly  and  neatly  about  it.  A  common  envelope 
box  will  contain  enough  flowers  for  two  bouquets.  Of  course  heavy- 
petalled  flowers,  such  as  dahlias,  camelias,   roses,  etc.,  press  better 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE.  2/1 

than  more  delicate  ones,  although  verbenas,  and  many  small  and 
delicate  petalled  flowers  have  come  from  their  sand-beds  looking  so 
natural  that  only  by  very  close  inspection  could  they  be  told  from 
natural  flowers.  The  petals  and  leaves  are  quite  tough,  will  bear 
handling  almost  as  well  as  when  fresh,  and  when  placed  in  the  bon- 
net, can  with  difficulty  be  distinguished  from  the  finest  artificial 
flowers,  and  when  in  the  hair  might  readily  be  taken  for  a  blossom 
fresh  from  the  garden.  Ferns  and  leaves  are  best  laid  flat  in  the  box, 
especially  the  former,  as  their  slender  form  will  give  them  all  the 
droop  that  is  desirable.  A  bouquet  or  wreath,  which  it  is  usually  im- 
possible to  keep  as  a  souvenir,  can,  wnth  patience,  be  admirably  pre- 
served in  this  manner.  When  once  buried  in  the  sand,  no  care  is 
required,  save  that  the  boxes  be  kept  in  a  moderately  dry  place,  and 
await  resurrection  of  their  buried  contents;  flowers  remain  in  sand 
from  three  to  eight  weeks,  for  the  thinnest  to  the  thickest  leaved, 
and  it  is  wise  to  give  them  a  few  days'  grace.  By  the  sea  and  in 
lake  countries  the  sand  is  inclined  to  absorb  moisture.  They  are  not 
brittle,  but  to  the  touch  are  like  tissue  paper;  when  creased  sharply, 
they  break. 

To  ascertain  the  best  time  for  re-potting  plants,  knock  the  ball  of 
earth  out  of  the  pot,  and  if  the  root  is  all  grown  together  in  a  mass 
at  the  sides  and  bottom,  the  plant  should  be  transferred  to  the  next- 
sized  pot.  Never  remove  the  soil  from  the  roots  with  the  hands, 
but  rather  wash  it  away,  otherwise  the  fine  fibrous  roots  on  which 
the  plant  depends  for  subsistence  ma\-  be  damaged. 

There  is  no  better  cure  for  a  sickly  plant  than  to  wash  the  roots 
clean,  and  then  put  in  a  new  pot,  using  fresh  soil. 

A  FLOWER  that  can  be  heartily  recommended  to  those  cultivating 
out-door  plants  is  Erysimum.  They  grow  easily,  and  if  planted  in 
the  summer  will  bloom  late  in  the  fall.  Like  Nemophila,  Er}'simum 
will  almost  take  care  of  itself 

Of  all  house  plants,  a  Catalonian  Jessamine  pays  the  best.  From 
the  1st  of  August  till  New  Year's  day  it  bears  a  profusion  of  deli- 
cate white  flowers,  which  exhale  the  most  exquisite  fragrance.     If 


272  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

there  were  no  flowers,  the  foliage,  a  delicate  vine,  would  amply  re- 
pay wintering.  They  never  have  a  bug,  the  leaves  never  turn  yellow 
and  it  requires  very  little  care. 

A  Water  Bouquet. — A  water  bouquet  is  a  novelty  which  ladies 
may  be  glad  to  hear  about,  especially  when  flowers  are  scarce* 
and  ingenuity  is  taxed  its  uttermost  for  novelty  and  variety.  The 
articles  required  are  a  circular  glass  dish  and  a  low  glass  shade 
to  fit  inside  the  dish.  The  bouquet  is  made  according  to  the  size 
of  the  shade,  as  there  must  be  a  margin  of  an  inch  or  so  between 
the  glass  and  the  flowers.  If  the  shade  is  small  a  very  few 
flowers  will  suffice,  and  these  should  be  put  tightly  together,  with 
fern  or  moss  arranged  as  nmch  as  possible  to  hide  the  stalks,  which 
must  be  tied  firmly  together,  and  cut  close.  To  look  well  for  the 
centre  of  a  dinner-table,  the  shade  should  not  be  smaller  round  than 
a  pudding  plate.  A  larger  size  would  look  even  better;  but  the 
difficulty  in  making  it  is  the  quantity  of  water  required,  as  you  must 
place  the  dish  in  the  bottom  of  a  bath,  with  sufficient  water  to  go 
over  the  top  of  the  shade.  Then  weigh  the  bouquet  with  the  glass 
stopper  of  a  decanter  or  some  like  convenient  article  to  make  it 
stand  upright  and  prevent  the  bouquet  from  floating.  Perhaps  a 
smaller  stopper  on  each  side  would  keep  it  more  upright.  Place 
the  bouquet  in  the  centre  of  the  dish  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
bath,  and  ta  e  the  shade,  holding  it  sidewise  underneath  the  water, 
and  place  it  carefully  over  the  flowers,  resting  it  on  the  dish.  Care 
must  be  taken  to  keep  the  shade  well  under  the  water,  as,  when  the 
bouquet  is  completed,  the  shade  must  be  quite  full  of  water,  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  air.  Lift  the  whole  thing  out  of  the  water,  slowly  and 
with  care;  dry  the  dish  and  place  it  on  the  table.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  say  that  it  will  be  very  heavy.  The  effect  is  beautiful,  as  the  flowers 
appear  magnified  through  the  water,  and  a  sparkling  silvery  effect  is 
given  to  the  leaves.  This  bouquet  will  last  for  two  or  three  days  as 
it  is,  and  by  changing  the  water,  for  much  longer.  In  removing  the 
shade  it  must  be  placed  underneath  the  water,  and  care  must  be  taken 
to  do  this  gradually,  or  else  the  glass  may  crack  and  break.     Even 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE.  273 

if  the  flowers  have  a  withered  look  when  seen  without  the  water, 
they  appear  fresh  again  when  the  water  is  renewed.  Very  small 
water  bouquets  can  be  made  with  finger  glasses,  and  pink  ones  have 
a  pretty  effect.  These  ornaments  are  exceedingly  attractive  on  the 
breakfast  and  dinner-table. 

Growing  Smilax  in  the  House. — This  beautiful  winter  climber 
— the  graceful  queen  of  decorative  vines — is  adapted  alike  to  the 
green-house  and  conservatory.  With  very  little  care  it  can  be  grown 
successfully  as  a  house  plant.  The  seed  should  be  sown  in  a  box, 
or  in  pots,  in  the  house;  should  be  kept  moist  till  the  young  plants 
appear.  The  seed  being  rather  slow  to  germinate,  you  must  not 
think  it  bad  if  it  does  not  make  its  appearance  for  two  weeks.  The 
young  plants  should  be  potted  off  into  three  inch  pots  as  soon  as 
they  are  three  or  four  inches  high.  Once  a  year  the  bulbs  should  be 
allowed  to  dry  off  and  rest;  they  will  start  into  growth  again  in 
about  six  weeks.  The  vine  does  not  require  the  full  sun,  but  it  will 
grow  in  a  partially-shaded  situation.  It  can  be  trained  on  a  small 
thread  across  the  window  or  around  pictures.  It  is  a  climbing  vine, 
and  will  attach  itself  to  a  string  in  just  about  the  right  condition  to 
use  for  wreaths,  etc.,  or,  when  required  for  tighter  work,  the  branches 
which  become  entangled  can  be  separated. 

A  Flower  Bed. — One  pretty  and  simple  way  to  make  a  flower 

bed  is  to  first  prepare  a  rich  soil,  make  a  round  bed,  raise  it  a  little 

in  the  centre,  then  in  the  centre  drive  a  stake,  and  to  it  tie  a  string 

twenty  inches  long.     At  the  other  end  of  the  string  tie  a  pointed 

stick,  and  with  it,  walking  around  the  bed,  make  a  circle  ;  then  untie  the 

string  and  lengthen  it  thirty-five  inches  long,  and  in  the  same  manner 

make   another  circle  around   the  bed   outside  the  first ;  then  again 

make  the  last  or  outside  circle  five  inches  from  the  centre ;  now  pull 

up  the  stake,  and  in  its  place  put  eight  or  ten  zinnia  seeds ;  of  course, 

don't  throw  them  all   in  a  heap.     When  they  come  up,  pull  up  all 

but  three  or  four  thrifty  plants  ;  it  is  better  to  have  a  few  good  plants 

than  a  dozen'  crowded  ones.     In  the  first  circle  or  the  one  next  to 

the  centre,  sow  balsam ;  in   the  second,  asters ;  in  the  third  or  out- 
18 


274  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

side  circle  sow  candytuft.  When  the  seeds  come  up,  thin  the 
balsam  and  asters  six  or  eight  inches  apart,  and  the  candytuft  two 
inches ;  if  any  are  missing,  transplant.  This  plan  is  a  much  better 
one  than  to  throw  the  seeds  in  the  ground  promiscuously,  without 
regard  to  size  or  color.  In  this  bed,  of  course,  can  be  used  different 
seeds  than  those  named ;  but  be  sure  to  have  all  the  tallest  plants  in 
the  centre,  and  blend  the  colors.  This  arrangement  will  be  liked ; 
the  balsams  hide  the  long,  naked  zinnia  stalks,  while  the  white  candy- 
tuft looks  like  a  rift  of  snow  around  the  bed. 

Another  Way. — Select  then  for  a  rich  and  gorgeous  show  of 
bloom  a  few  varieties  of  zonal  geraniums,  both  single  and  double 
flowers,  verbenas,  heliotrope,  etc.  For  a  more  artistic  show,  select 
lantanas,  yellow  jessamine,  a  half  dozen  fuchsias  and  varieties  of 
flowering  begonias.  Of  foliage  plants,  for  ornament,  the  coleus,  rex 
begonias,  cannas,  ricinus,  and  the  caladium  esculentum  are  not  sur- 
passed in  producing  a  tropical  effect  when  properly  massed  in  the 
door-yard  or  lawn. 

An  attractive  bed  of  these  may  be  formed  by  first  planting  for  a 
background  a  row  of  the  ricinus,  then  a  row  of  cannas,  leaving  two  and 
one-half  feet  space  in  centre  of  row  for  the  caladium  esculentum,  the 
next  row  may  be  of  dark  or  velvet  coleus,  another  of  light  colored 
or  golden  coleus,  finishing  off"  with  a  row  of  cineraria  maratima. 
This  forms  a  very  attractive  bed  on  the  lawn,  even  when  viewed  from 
a  distance. 

In  front  of  this,  but  not  too  close,  will  be  wanted  a  bed  of  the  queen 
of  flowers,  the  rose.  They  should  be  of  the  ever-blooming  class,  as 
they,  with  good  soil  and  culture,  make  a  grand  show  of  sweet-scented 
buds,  from  early  summer  until  late  autumn.  If  you  are  not  ac- 
quainted with  the  varieties  you  had  better  send  your  order  to  the 
florist  and  let  him  select  for  you,  as  he  will  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
send  you  a  better  selection,  variety,  and  color  than  you  could  your- 
self. 

As  a  late-blooming  plant  none  excels  the  china  aster.  Sow  the 
seed  in  a  box  about  the  middle  of  April,  or  in  the  open  ground  two 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE.  2/5 

weeks  later.  When  the  plants  are  about  three  or  four  inches  high 
transplant  to  a  bed  in  the  lawn  or  garden,  made  very  rich,  and  in 
the  full  sunshine. 

Seasonable  Hints. — Plants  growing  with  full  vigor  with  the  pots 
full  of  roots  will  require  an  abundance  of  water — every  day  will  not 
be  too  much  if  the  weather  is  clear.  Take  the  same  plant  with  but 
a  few  leaves  on  it,  just  shifted  into  fresh  soil,  with  but  a  few  roots, 
and  watering  once  a  week  may  even  be  too  much  for  it.  The  tem- 
perature of  the  water  supplied  to  plants  should  be  about  the  same 
degree  as  the  temperature  of  the  room  in  which  they  are  growing, 
and  when  water  is  applied  sufficient  should  be  given  to  thoroughly 
saturate  the  soil.  A  mere  dribbling  on  the  surface  does  more  harm 
than  good,  as  it  draws  up  what  moisture  there  may  be  in  the  soil 
when  it  is  wet.  Let  the  water  run  through  into  the  saucer  and  then 
empty  it  out,  but  on  no  account  allow  the  plants  to  remain  in  it. 

Repot  plants  into  the  next  size  in  which  they  have  been  growing,  but 
remember  that  most  plants  bloom  more  quickly  by  having  their  roots 
cramped  in  small  pots.  If  you  have  any  sickly  plants,  wash  all  the 
dirt  off  the  roots  and  give  new  soil  and  clean  pots. 

The  best  time  for  cutting  flowers  is  immediately  after  sundown — 
unless  to  preserve  them  from  a  storm,  which  would  otherwise  destroy 
or  prevent  their  being  cut  in  the  evening.  On  cloudy  days  the  time 
of  cutting  is  a  matter  of  much  less  difference.  The  explanation  of 
these  rules  as  to  the  proper  time  for  cutting  is  found  in  the  state  of 
the  sap  at  different  times  of  the  day  and  night.  From  the  earliest 
dawn  until  sundown  the  leaves  are  actively  drawing  upon  the  roots, 
and  the  sap  is  flowing  freely.  After  that  time  the  leaves  are  nearly 
dormant  till  morning.  The  plant  is  then  resting — is  asleep.  A 
flower  cut  in  the  sunshine  will  wilt  at  once,  and  if  not  put  into  water 
will  quickly  perish  ;  whereas,  if  cut  at  sunset  it  will  remain  fresh  all 
night.  In  a  cool  place  it  will  not  appear  to  change  for  a  long  time, 
even  if  not  put  in  water,  yet  in  a  close,  hot  room  it  will  fade  in  an 
hour.  In  this  connection,  it  must  be  remembered  that  no  rose 
should  be  allowed   to   expand   fully  before  cutting.     Cut   them   all 


2/6  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

while  in  bud.  This  rule  may  be  apphed  to  every  flower.  It  cost 
the  plant  more  to  bring  one  flower  to  full  maturity  than  to  produce 
a  dozen  buds.  Therefore  cut  as  soon  as  in  condition,  and  cut  them 
all.  To  suffer  flowers  to  fade  on  a  plant,  and  go  to  seed,  is  to  lose 
nine-tenths  of  the  whole  crop.  Freedom  and  generosity  in  cutting 
flowers  is  the  best  and  the  truest  economy. 

Plants  at  rest  are  usually  stored  away  under  the  benches,  in  the 
greenhouse,  or  by  amateurs  under  a  flower-stand  or  in  the  cellar.  It 
is  unnecessary  to  remove  them  from  their  pots.  A  period  of  six  or 
eight  weeks'  rest  is  generally  allowed  to  fuchsias,  crape  myrtles, 
lemon  verbenas,  and  such  shrubby  plants. 

To  Preserve  Flowers. — An  excellent  method  for  preserving 
flowers  consists  simply  in  immersing  them  for  a  moment  in  melted 
parafline,  drawing  them  out  quickly,  and  shaking  them  gently  so  as 
to  remove  the  excess.  The  flowers  should  be  fresh-plucked  and  en- 
tirely free  from  drops  of  water.  The  parafline  must  be  heated  only 
enough  to  be  liquid,  as  a  greater  degree  of  temperature  would  injure 
the  flowers.  The  flowers  should  be  immersed  one  by  one,  and 
shaken  about  somewhat  so  as  to  prevent  the  adhesion  of  bubbles  of 
air  to  the  surface.  This  method  was  discovered  by  a  celebrated 
German  perfumer,  and  is  quoted  as  being  a  perfect  one. 

Flower  Raising. — The  soil  for  potting  plants  should  be  composed 
of  two  parts  of  fine  fibrous  earth  from  the  woods  and  some  good 
garden  soil.  For  cactus  use  one-half  sand  or  old  lime.  Second,  for 
drainage,  place  small  pieces  of  charcoal  or  broken  earth  ware  over  the 
hole  in  the  bottom  of  the  pot.  Place  your  plant  in  the  centre  of  the 
pot,  press  the  earth  around  it  closely,  water  thoroughly  and  enough 
to  wet  the  roots  and  moisten  all  the  soil.  Do  not  use  any  more 
water  until  the  earth  looks  dry.  Some  will  require  water  sooner 
than  others.  Rap  the  side  of  the  pot,  and  if  the  sound  is  dull  they 
are  wet  enough,  but  if  clear  and  sharp  they  need  more  water.  Use 
soft  water  always;  it  should  be  lukewarm.  Evening  is  the  best 
time  for  watering  them.  Cuttings  of  oleander  and  some  other  plants 
root  best  in  a  bottle  of  water  in  the  sunshine.     Slips  that  are  pulled 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE.  2'JJ 

off  of  plants  so  as  to  bring  a  piece  of  the  old  wood  will  be  more  apt 
to  live.  Keep  in  the  light  as  much  as  possible.  Plants  will  not  live 
in  the  dark.  It  is  a  good  plan  to  wash  plants  every  few  weeks  with 
lukewarm  soap-suds  and  rinse  with  clean  water. 

The  plants  suitable  for  winter  blooming  are  numerous,  but  none 
afford  so  much  pleasure  as  a  good  collection  of  bulbs,  such  as  hya- 
cinth, narcissus,  and  the  early  tulips  and  other  bulbs.  Plants  for 
winter  use  should  be  started  from  slips  or  seed  in  May  or  June. 
They  should  be  set  in  a  rich  loam  and  kept  damp.  In  a  cool  but 
light  situation  a  large  growth  is  not  good,  but  a  strong,  close  one. 
Allow  no  flowers  or  buds  until  removed  into  the  house  in  Septem- 
ber. When  old  plants  are  taken  for  winter  use  they  should  be  well 
cut  in,  so  that  new  wood  may  be  produced.  Remember,  it  takes 
about  six  months  to  produce  a  plant  for  house  use  that  is  suitable  for 
blossoms. 

English  Ivy  is  a  charming  decoration  for  rooms  in  the  winter  sea- 
son, but  it  is  difficult  to  keep  the  leaves  fresh-looking  with  furnace 
heat  and  gas.  A  lady,  whose  ivies,  in  spite  of  these  drawbacks, 
always  retain  the  appearance  of  vigor  and  beauty,  put  a  small  piece 
of  beefsteak  at  the  root  of  the  plants  every  spring  and  fall.  The 
same  result  it  is  said  can  be  produced  by  lightly  rubbing  each 
leaf  on  both  sides  with  sweet  oil. 

To  keep  cut  flowers  fresh  the  first  rule  is  not  to  put  too  many  into 
the  glass  at  once;  change  the  water  once  or  even  twice  a  day,  re- 
move decayed  leaves  directly  they  appear,  and  cut  the  ends  of  the 
stems  occasionally.  A  still  better  way  is  to  put  nitrate  of  soda  in 
the  water — about  as  much  as  can  be  easily  taken  up  by  the  fingers ; 
put  into  the  glass  each  time  the  water  is  changed.  It  will  preserve 
cut  flowers  in  all  their  beauty  for  above  a  fortnight.  Common  salt- 
petre in  water  will  almost  answer  the  same  purpose,  but  it  is  not 
quite  so  efficacious. 

Tuberoses  are  tender.  To  do  well  and  blossom  early  they  should 
be  started  in  the  house.  Here  is  oneway:  Plant  them  in  old  tomato 
cans,  without  punching  any  holes  for  drainage,  set  them  on  the  man- 


278  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

tel  over  the  kitchen  stove,  and  keep  warm  and  wet.  When  well 
started  move  to  a  cooler  place,  and  in  June  set  out  in  the  garden. 
The  old  double  variety  runs  up  a  stem  six  or  seven  feet  high,  and 
produces  very  fragrant  flowers.  Now  there  is  a  dwarf  sort  called 
pearl;  the  bulbs  of  this  are  much  smaller  but  the  flowers  are  equally 
as  good. 

Fancy  Fern-Pans. — With  but  little  pains  the  fancy  fern-pans,  or 
"  Boston  ferneries  "  as  they  are  called  by  florists,  can  be  filled.  These 
will  g-row  and  remain  fresh  for  months  if  well  watered.  If  the 
woods  are  visited  on  an  open  winter's  day  a  variety  of  pretty  mosses 
and  ferns  may  be  gathered.  A  basket  should  be  taken  in  which  to 
place  rock  moss,  wood  moss,  and  swamp  moss,  which  will  be  found 
in  rock  crevices,  at  the  roots  of  trees  and  in  the  swamps.  This  is 
used  as  the  foundation  for  the  fernery.  At  any  tin  shop  a  pan  half 
an  inch  deeper  than  a  round  tin  pie-pan  can  be  made.  In  this  mix 
the  several  kinds  of  mosses.  The  prettiest  collection  to  gather  is 
graceful  branches  of  pines,  pitcher  plants,  snake  roots,  wintergreen, 
fungus,  wood  berries,  lycopodium,  wild  cranberries,  acorns,  pterris, 
linum,  and  ferns  of  any  kind.  Arrange  them  tastefully  in  the  moss, 
plunging  the  roots  and  stems  well  into  it.  The  fernery  should  be 
soaked  with  water  morning  and  night.  The  water  should  be  well 
drained  off  by  tipping  the  pan.  If  these  ferneries  are  placed  on  the 
round  gilded  baskets  so  popular  this  season,  they  make  a  charming 
and  economical  centre-piece  for  the  dinner-table. 

Fuchsias  are  propagated  by  cuttings  taken  from  the  young  wood 
in  early  spring,  rooted  in  damp  sand.  As  soon  as  roots  are  formed 
they  are  potted  in  very  rich  earth,  for  they  are  voracious  feeders.  In 
a  very  few  weeks  the  pots  will  be  full  of  roots,  when  the  plants  should 
be  shifted  into  the  next  size,  and  this  treatment  should  be  followed  as 
often  as  the  pots  are  filled.  Quite  a  large  plant  can  be  grown  in  a 
season  from  a  cutting.  Fuchsias  are  very  fond  of  iron  in  their  food, 
and  some  florists  give  them  copperas  dissolved  in  water.  Others 
use  nails  put  in  the  earth,  and  the  plants  grow  more  rapidly  than 
when  not  so  treated. 


FLORICULTURE    AND    HORTICULTURE.  279 

A  fuchsia,  if  left  to  its  own  accord,  will  generally  make  a  strag- 
gling growth.  They  can  be  trained  into  perfect  shape  in  this  way: 
As  soon  as  the  cutting  has  grown  about  eight  inches  in  height,  the  top 
is  cut  out,  which  induces  the  plant  to  throw  out  side  branches.  These 
again  are  kept  shortened  in  such  a  manner  that  the  plant  becomes 
bushy  at  the  base  and  runs  to  a  point  at  the  top.  If  this  course  is 
regularly  pursued  a  most  symmetrical  plant  will  be  the  result. 

Rotted  Sods  are  made  by  cutting  turf-grass  with  the  soil  attached 
to  the  roots — in  the  spring  time.  These  sods,  or  turfs  as  sometimes 
called,  are  then  piled  up  one  on  top  of  another  in  piles  and  left  to 
decompose.  If  soap-suds  be  carried  from  the  wash-tub  and  thrown 
on  the  pile  the  potash  in  the  suds  will  go  to  make  the  compost  still 
richer.  Many  florists  have  soil  on  hand  so  prepared  that  it  is  kept 
many  years. 

How  TO  Set  Grafts. — The  season  for  grafting  may  be  said  to  be 
from  the  first  of  April  to  June,  the  time  when  the  forces  of  nature 
are  impelling  the  upward  flow  of  sap  in  the  tree.  "  Grafts  have  been 
set  the  last  day  of  May  with  as  much  success  as  at  any  other  time. 
When  understood — and  it  ought  to  be  an  easy  thing  to  learn — any 
one  can  do  his  own  grafting.  Yet  due  care  must  be  taken  in  all 
the  details  to  insure  growing. 

"Stocks  or  limbs  to  be  grafted,  not  over  two  inches  in  diameter, 
should  be  cut  off  at  the  distance  of  four  inches.  A  fine  saw  should 
be  used.  Incline  the  saw  so  that  the  stump  will  shed  the  rain.  The 
bark  must  be  uninjured.  With  a  sharp  knife  smooth  off  the  sawed 
stump.  Take  a  case-knife,  which  is  as  good  as  any,  place  it 
across  the  heart  of  the  stock,  and  force  it  down  with  a  wooden  mal- 
let. Use  a  very  narrow  screw-driver  for  keeping  open  the  split. 
Shape  the  scion  wedge-fashion  both  ways,  keeping  the  bark  intact. 
Make  a  shoulder  as  far  up  as  the  scion  is  shaved;  it  is  not  so 
strong,  but  better  insures  growth.  The  inside  of  the  bark  of  both 
scion  and  stock  must  meet  or  cross,  in  order  that  the  sap  of  the  two 
may  commingle.  Set  the  scion  at  a  slight  angle  spreading  from  each 
other.     When  the  stock  is  small  and  only  one  scion  inserted,  place  a 


28o  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

piece  of  wood  on  the  opposite  side  of  corresponding  thickness.  If 
the  sHt  does  not  close  up  sufficiently,  tie  round  a  cotton  string  to 
keep  it  tight  upon  the  graft.  Cover  with  wax  every  part  of  the  cut 
wood  and  sHt.  In  three  weeks'  time  go  over  the  grafts  and  rewax  if 
needed.  It  is  air  and  rain  getting  in  that  destroy.  Where  the  limb 
to  be  grafted  is  from  two  to  four  inches  over,  it  should  be  cut  say  six 
inches  from  the  tree,  and  from  four  to  six  scions  may  be  inserted. 

The  cause  of  buds  blasting  may  be  attributed  to  several  reasons. 
One  is  allowing  the  plant  to  get  too  dry,  both  at  the  roots  and  the  fo- 
liage, from  want  of  sprinkling.  A  still  more  common  cause  is  the 
escape  of  coal  gas  from  the  stove.  This  gas  from  coal-stoves  also 
causes  the  leaves  to  drop,  and  often  leads  to  still  greater  damage. 

The  entire  contents  of  a  large  greenhouse  have  been  destroyed 
because  of  the  fact  that  the  flue  used  in  heating  the  building  in  some 
way  cracked  in  the  night-time,  and,  as  coal  was  burned  in  the  furnace, 
the  deadly  coal  gas  killed  everything. 

In  order  to  rid  house  plants  of  small,  white  worms,  gardeners  take 
a  fine  flour  sieve  and  sift  the  dirt  well  before  putting  in  the  pots  for 
the  plants. 

Cut  off  the  flowers  of  roses  as  they  fade ;  the  second  crop  will  be 
much  better  for  the  attention.  Seeds  of  all  flowering  plants  should 
be  also  taken  off;  all  this  assists  the  duration  of  the  blooming  sea- 
son. After  the  walks  and  lawns,  the  flower-beds  should  be  a  constant 
source  of  attention.  If  the  plants  appear  to  suffer  by  drought, 
there  is  no  better  remedy  than  to  place  a  fork  around  the  plant  and 
loosen  up  the  soil  deeply  without  disturbing  the  plant  more  than  can 
be  avoided.  After  being  thus  loosened,  it  will  not  dry  out  near  as 
much  as  before.  Above  all,  keep  the  surface  continually  broken  by 
hoeing  and  breaking  fine.  Nothing  is  so  sure  a  preventive  of  soil- 
drying  as  a  loose,  porous  texture.  But  much  of  watering  and  hoeing 
will  be  saved,  if  in  hot  places  the  flowers  have  tan  or  other  mulching 
substances  over  the  beds  among  the  flowers. 

To  Grow  Hyacinths  in  Water. — To  grov/  hyacinths  in  glasses 
is  the  most  simple  thing  imaginable,  and  yet  let  it  be  remembered 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE.  28 1 

that  the  roots  of  all  plants  will,  by  their  natural  instinct,  hide  them- 
selves from  the  light,  so  whenever  you  purchase  hyacinth  glasses, 
which  are  very  cheap  nowadays,  select  dark  colors,  blue  or  red  for 
instance,  and  those  of  the  long  narrow  or  Belgian  pattern  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  more  elaborate  styles.  The  hyacinth  makes  long  white 
roots,  and  to  make  them  quickly  and  before  it  starts  into  leaf  growth, 
the  bulbs,  after  being  either  potted  or  put  in  the  glasses,  must  be  put 
entirely  in  the  dark  for  about  six  weeks.  Always  use  rain  water. 
Fill  the  glasses  so  that  the  water  will  barely  touch  the  bottom  of  the 
bulb.  The  water  should  be  changed  as  often  as  once  in  three  weeks, 
using  pure  rain  water  of  the  same  temperature  as  you  took  them 
out  of.  A  piece  of  charcoal  in  the  water  will  cause  it  too  keep  sweet 
longer.  A  little  ammonia  dissolved  in  the  water  will  give  the 
flowers  much  brighter  color. 

To  grow  the  hyacinth  in  moss,  you  need  only  place  in  the  bottom 
of  your  intended  bulb  garden  a  layer  of  nice  clean  moss  laid  in  quite 
loosely.  On  this  plant  your  hyacinth  or  other  bulbs — and  by  the 
way  the  Polyanthus  narcissus  is  a  good  one  for  this  purpose.  Cover 
them  with  moss,  and  take  care  to  keep  it  always  damp.  Holes  may 
be  cut  in  large  sponges,  such  as  coachmen  use,  and  a  small  nyacinth 
bulb  stuffed  into  them.  The  sponge  may  be  suspended  by  a  string, 
and  will  naturally  excite  curiosity  as  the  bulbs  develop  themselves. 
Of  course  the  sponge  must  be  kept  wet.  Remember,  the  hyacinth 
will  grow  anywhere  and  in  anything  where  it  can  have  abundant 
moisture. 

Propagating  Plants. — One  of  the  first  necessary  conditions  is 
that  the  plant  from  which  the  cutting  or  slip  is  taken  must  be  in 
vigorous  health.  If,  for  example,  you  wish  to  root  cuttings  of  green- 
house or  bedding  plants,  one  of  the  best  guides  to  the  proper  con- 
dition is  when  the  cutting  breaks  or  snaps  clean  off,  instead  of  bend- 
ing or  kneeing.  If  it  snaps  off  so  as  to  break,  it  will  root  freely;  if  it 
bends  it  is  too  old,  and  though  it  may  root  it  will  root  much  slower 
and  make  a  weaker  plant.  A  general  idea  is  current  that  a  cutting 
must  be  cut  at  or  below  a  joint  or  eye.     The  practice  of  this  system 


282  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME, 

leads  to  many  cases  of  failure,  from  the  fact  that  when  a  slip  is  cut 
from  the  joint  the  shoot  often  has  become  too  hard  at  that  point, 
while  half  an  inch  higher  up,  or  above  the  point,  the  proper  condi- 
tion will  be  found. 

The  best  condition  to  root  cuttings  of  the  great  majority  of  green- 
house plants  is  sixty-five  degrees  of  bottom  heat  and  an  atmospheric 
temperature  of  fifteen  degrees  less.  Sand  is  the  best  medium  in  which 
to  place  cuttings ;  color  or  texture  is  of  no  especial  importance. 
From  the  time  the  cuttings  are  inserted  until  they  are  rooted  they 
should  never  be  allowed  to  get  dry;  it  is  best  to  keep  the  sand 
soaked  with  water.  Kept  thus  saturated  there  is  less  chance  of  the 
cutting  getting  wilted,  for  if  a  cutting  is  once  wilted,  its  juices  are  ex- 
pended. Permitting  a  moderate  circulation  of  air  in  the  propagating 
house  prevents  the  germination  of  that  spider-like  web  substance 
which  is  known  as  "  fungus  of  the  cutting  bench."  It  is  best  to  pot 
off  the  cuttings  at  once  when  rooted.  They  should  be  placed  in 
small  pots  from  two  to  two  and  a  half  inches  wide.  In  larger  pots 
the  soil  dries  out  too  slowly  and  the  tender  root  rots. 

Begonias  are  indispensable  plants  for  the  window  gardener,  as 
tlieir  leaves  are  often  more  beautiful  than  their  flowers,  and  so  very 
numerous  are  their  varieties  and  so  continuous  their  flowering,  that 
one  could  furnish  a  window  with  no  other  plants,  and  be  sure  of 
having  them  in  flower  the  year  round,  while  they  will  endure  any 
amount  of  heat  and  a  good  supply  of  water  if  the  soil  is  sandy  and  it 
is  not  kept  in  a  sodden  condition.  Yet  they  will  fully  repay  careful 
treatment  by  a  more  luxuriant  growth  of  leaves  and  flowers.  There 
is  no  variety  of  begonia  that  does  not  make  a  desirable  window 
plant,  but  B.  alba  7iitida  and  B.  rosea  nitida  are  the  most  constant 
bloomers  that  are  now  cultivated.  B.  incaniata  and  B.  fuchsioides 
are  also  lovely  plants,  with  drooping  panicles  of  blush  and  crimson 
flowers.  Good  drainage  is  essential,  and  a  few  bits  of  charcoal  at  the 
bottom  of  the  pot  will  keep  the  soil  in  good  condition.  A  compost 
of  half  garden  soil  and  half  leaf  mold,  or  peaty  soil  with  a  table- 
spoonful  of  sand  well  stirred  in,  will  grow  very  fine  plants.    There  are 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE.  283 

three  germs  or  species  of  begonias :  those  above  mentioned,  rex 
begonias,  or  elephant-leaf  begonia  and  the  tuberous  rooted  varieties, 
which  make  very  beautiful  plants,  either  for  the  window  garden,  vase, 
or  basket  culture,  and  the  open  border.  The  tubers  can  be  taken  up 
in  the  autumn  and  kept  like  dahlias  when  they  are  used  for  bedders 
in  summer. 

Camellia  Japonica. — Grafting  should  be  done  in  August  and 
September,  and  inarching  in  July.  The  cuttings  may  be  started 
under  glass.  Care  must  always  be  observed  in  watering,  as  too 
much  or  too  little  water  will  cause  the  buds  to  drop,  and  the  tem- 
perature must  remain  even,  and  there  be  no  sudden  change  of  an}- 
kind,  or  the  result  would  be  the  same.  Water  thoroughly,  and  turn 
all  water  from  the  saucer,  as  they  are  very  sensitive,  and  sour  soil  is 
always  sure  death.  The  leaves  must  be  sponged  frequently.  In  its 
native  woods  the  camellia  grows  in  moist,  shady  localities;  therefore 
do  not  put  it  in  the  sun,  and,  if  the  buds  are  thick,  pick  off  the  small, 
weak  ones,  that  the  blossoms  may  not  crowd  each  other.  Never 
touch  the  buds,  as  they  blast  so  easily,  and  do  not  sprinkle  when  in 
bud,  but  apply  the  water  to  the  soil  and  sponge  the  leaves  if  necessary. 
If  your  leaves  are  spotted,  it  was  causea  by  sprinkling  when  the  sun 
was  on  them ;  care  must  be  here  exercised  also.  They  need  but  little 
heat  or  sun,  and  why  they  are  not  more  generally  cultivated  in 
window  gardens  is  not  understood.  They  are  usually  expensi\e, 
but  not  more  so  than  many  other  plants.  They  will  die  if  you  give 
too  rich  a  soil.  There  are  several  of  the  evergreen  shrubby  varieties 
which  do  well  in  the  dry  air  of  our  living  rooms.  One  of  the  best 
is  what  is  known  as  Piltisporuin  tohira  Chinensis ;  it  has  a  beautiful 
glossy,  dark  color,  rich  foliage. 

Preserving  Autumn  Leaves. — Autumn  leaves  are  used  in  various 
methods,  the  most  popular  being,  perhaps,  to  dry  them  flatly  and  care- 
fully, and  take  great  care  to  preserve  their  stalks.  When  thoroughly  dry, 
they  are  varnished  with  "Canada  balsam  varnish,"  which  gives  them 
a  pretty  gloss,  and  also  acts  as  a  preservative  to  them  from  all  insects 
and  moths.     After  this  they  are  carefully  laid  aside  for  the  decora- 


284  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

tion  of  the  winter  dinner-table,  and  may  be  most  safely  preserved  in 
a  tin  box,  with  a  well-fitting  cover.  Grasses  added  to  them  are  very 
effective,  and  when  dry  they  may  be  dyed  at  home  with  Judson's 
dyes.  They  may  be  also  frosted  when  dry,  by  dipping  each  stalk 
into  a  solution  of  alum,  and  leaving  them  to  dry  upright.  With  the 
glasses  and  leaves  may  be  used  the  dried  everlasting  flowers  and  the 
prepared  moss ;  however,  no  little  taste  is  needed  in  their  arrange- 
ment to  avoid  the  least  heaviness  of  effect.  Grass  vases  and  stands 
are  the  most  effective  for  their  arrangement,  as  the  transparency  of 
these  increases  the  wished-for  lightness  and  grace.  Another  way  of 
using  the  dried  leaves  is  for  the  ornamentation  of  tables,  blotting- 
books,  or  boxes.  Old  cigar  boxes,  when  painted  black,  are  very 
favorite  articles  for  decoration;  but  now  we  know  the  value  of  var- 
nished unpainted  wood.  Many  people  will  prefer  the  effect  of  the 
cigar  boxes  unpainted,  with  the  unvarnished  leaves  gummed  on,  and 
the  box  and  leaves  varnished  afterward.  If,  however,  a  black  ground 
be  especially  desired,  use  "  Brunswick  black,"  to  stain  the  wood,  or 
"  Brunswick  black  "  and  turpentine  mixed,  to  make  a  rich-looking 
brown  grounding.  Then  gum  on  the  leaves  in  a  central  group,  be- 
ing careful  to  cut  away,  with  a  sharp  pair  of  scissors,  all  the  under 
parts  of  the  leaves  which  will  be  hidden  by  others  above,  as  too 
many  thicknesses  of  leaf  will  make  an  uneven  surface,  and  give  an 
ugly  appearance  to  the  work  when  finished. 

Rockeries  and  Grottos. — These  rustic  ornaments  are  made  of 
common  rocks,  stones  and  shells,  piled  up  in  pyramidal  forms  several 
feet  high  and  many  feet  across  the  base.  The  rocks  can  be  cemented 
together  or  fastened  by  piling  them  up  irregularly,  so  that  they  will 
form  nooks  and  pockets  all  the  way  up  to  the  top,  to  hold  the  soil 
for  growing  plants  and  vines.  At  the  bottom  niches  and  grottos  can 
be  filled  with  ferns  and  vines  that  grow  best  in  water,  while  at  the  top 
can  be  placed  those  plants  that  most  enjoy  heat  and  sunshine. 

Do  not  locate  the  rock-work  too  near  the  house,  for  distance  here 
adds  beauty  to  the  view.  Nature  always  hides  her  mossy  and  ferny 
nooks   away  in  the  depths   of  woods  and   trees.     Make  it  look  as 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE.  285 

natural  as  possible,  never  allowing  any  pieces  of  the  painted  pottery 
or  any  of  the  other  imitations  of  statuary  or  rock-work  to  be  placed 
in  or  near  it.  Gather  material  for  it  yourself  from  the  woods  and 
rocky  shores  ;  old  gnarled  knotty  roots  of  trees  are  an  addition  ;  all 
sorts  of  wild  wood  plants  that  grow  in  damp,  dark  places  can  be 
made  to  grow  here  if  they  can  be  kept  damp  enough.  When  one  has 
any  means  of  bringing  water  in  pipes  to  the  ground,  it  is  an  easy 
matter  to  manage  this,  and  in  most  cases  a  fish  pond  can  be  arranged 
in  the  grotto.  Where  one  cannot  have  water  brought  to  the  grounds, 
then  it  will  be  a  better  and  more  successful  plan  to  plant  only  the 
vines  and  flowers  that  do  not  need  much  water. 

Creeping  Charlie,  Kenilworth  ivy  and  many  other  vines  will  grow 
in  dry  places,  and  several  species  of  cactus  will  grow  in  the  dry, 
sandy  soil.  When  plants  are  brought  from  the  woods  they  should 
be  transplanted  in  their  native  soil.  Mosses,  lichens,  dwarf  ever- 
greens, strawberry  vines.  Jack  in  the  pulpit,  joy  Virginia  creeper, 
caladiums,  coleuses,  and  all  other  species  of  ferns  will  grow  here. 
Those  that  grow  best  in  damp  and  shade  should  be  placed  at 
the  base,  and  such  flowers  as  mignonette,  pansy  and  wild  colum- 
bine will  grow  up  nearer  the  top,  and  so  will  nearly  all  geraniums. 
■  The  .  brilliant  yellow  and  scarlet  nasturtiums,  also  chrysanthe- 
mums, are  very  beautiful.  The  latter  are  a  brilliant  purple,  white  or 
yellow. 

The  moneywort  is  a  hardy  little  plant ;  the  ice  plant  is  particularly 
pretty  with  its  leaves  sparkling  with  dew  drops,  but  is  not  very  hardy, 
nor  is  the  maurandia.  The  pretty  little  sedum  and  wandering  Jew 
are  also  effective.  Anything  will  grow  in  a  rockery  that  will  grow 
in  the  shade  or  shallow  soil.  Some  of  the  plants  and  vines  men- 
tioned will  not  grow  in  the  rockery  if  entirely  shaded,  and  if  it  could 
be  placed  so  that  the  sun  would  shine  on  it  an  hour  or  two  each  day, 
and  the  sun-loving  plants  placed  on  the  sunny  side,  it  would  be  an 
improvement.  Many  of  these,  particularly  where  there  is  a  fish  pond, 
are  placed  out  in  the  open  grounds,  and  when  the  sun  shines  brightly 
the  fishes  dart  in  the  shadow  of  the  rocks. 


286  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

The  Preservation  of  Bouquets. — (i)  Bouquets  that  are  made  in 
the  morning  for  evening  wear  should  be  put  away  in  tin  boxes  rather 
than  placed  in  water,  or  kept  in  the  dark  with  water ;  they  will  be 
much  fresher  by  so  doing.  (2)  A  little  gum  is  sometimes  dropped 
into  the  centre  of  flowers,  or  round  the  outside  of  their  petals,  to  help 
in  their  preservation.  This  treatment  is  particularly  necessary  for 
flowers  whose  petals  are  but  loosely  attached  to  their  stems,  or  where 
the  whole  flower  drops  at  the  slightest  touch,  as  the  patience  of  the 
decorator  is  much  tried  when,  on  the  completion  of  the  bouquet,  half 
the  work  falls  away.  The  gum  to  be  used  for  flowers  should  be  pure 
and  colorless,  and  is  best  made  at  home.  Buy  at  the  druggist's  some 
best  white  gum  arabic,  pick  av/ay  from  it  any  discolored  lumps,  and 
dissolve  in  boiling  water.  When  quite  liquid,  strain  through  an  old 
muslin  handkerchief,  and  place  it  in  a  bottle  ready  for  use.  Drop 
into  the  centre  of  such  flowers  as  azaleas,  pelargoniums,  jessamines, 
and  stephanotis  a  little  gum  from  the  point  of  a  clean  paint-brush, 
and  allow  it  to  dry  before  using  the  flower.  Round  the  outside  of 
the  azalea,  besides  the  inside  application,  pass  a  brushful  of  gum,  and 
do  the  same  to  the  stephanotis  just  where  the  petals  of  the  fragile 
flower  join  together.  The  gum  must  be  very  strong,  so  that  a  little 
used  is  sufficient,  and  it  should  not  be  apparent  unless  the  flower  is 
closely  examined.  (3)  Bouquets  can  be  sent  a  great  distance  and 
kept  fresh,  provided  they  are  properly  packed.  The  flowers  should 
always  be  immersed  in  clear,  cool  water  before  wiring  and  making 
up,  and  when  placed,  wet  moss  should  be  rolled  round  their  founda- 
tions, and  cardboard  or  tin  boxes  about  their  sizes  provided  for  them 
to  be  packed  in.  They  fare  best  in  tin  boxes,  as  the  outer  air  is 
then  entirely  excluded,  and  the  flowers  are  not  hurt  by  the  pressure 
of  other  parcels. 

To  Transplant  Mignonette. — Those  who  have  tried  to  transplant 
mignonette  have  found  to  their  satisfaction  that  it  is  no  easy  thing  to 
do,  especially  when  the  plants  have  gfown  two  or  three  inches  high. 
The  best  plan  is  to  fill  small  flower-pots,  such  as  florists  call  thumbs 
(they  are  two  and  a  half  inches  across  the  top),  with  good  soil,  press 


FLORICULTURE   AND    HORTICULTURE.  28/ 

it  firmly,  so  that  it  will  not  crumble  when  turned  out,  make  it  even 
on  top,  then  put  the  pots  in  the  ground  up  to  the  rim ;  if  properly 
done  they  will  look  like  honey-comb.  Sow  the  seed  broadcast  over 
the  pots,  cover  the  same  way  with  fine  soil — not  more  than  one-eighth 
of  an  inch  deep — then  water  lightly ;  shade  when  the  sun  is  out  with 
muslin  or  paper  until  the  plants  begin  to  come  up.  When  they  are 
one  or  two  inches  high,  plant  them  in  the  open  ground.  If  there  are 
too  many  plants  in  the  pot,  thin  them  out ;  water  them  every  evening 
if  the  weather  is  dry ;  by  so  doing  you  can  have  the  rows  full  and 
the  plants  one  or  two  weeks  earlier. 

Planting  Flower  Seeds. — A  good  way  to  plant  seeds  which  you 
wish  to  take  particularly  good  care  of  is  to  take  a  turnip,  cut  it  in  halves, 
scrape  out  the  shell,  then  fill  with  earth  and  plant  the  seeds.  When 
the  time  comes  to  put  the  plant  out-doors,  dig  a  hole  in  the  flower- 
bed large  eno^igh  to  set  the  turnip  in.  It  will  root  in  a  short  time, 
and  your  plants  will  thrive  by  not  having  the  tender  roots  disturbed. 

In  every  garden,  no  matter  how  much  may  be  done  in  the  way  of 
ornament,  there  should  be  somewhere  a  bed  from  which  the  flower- 
lovers  of  the  household  can  feel  free  to  cut  as  they  please.  Flowers 
in  masses,  and  ribbon  lines,  or  as  specimen  plants,  are  well,  but  it  is 
much  better  to  have  a  place  where  those  who  really  love  flowers  can 
go  and  cut  a  handful  with  no  gardener  to  prevent.  Such  a  bed 
should  have,  of  all  things,  an  abundance  of  the  best  kind  of  mign- 
onette, and  if  confined  to  annuals,  the  candy  tufts,  white  and  crimson, 
sweet  alyssum,  sweet  peas,  stocks,  China  asters,  the  annual  pinks,  and 
a  host  of  others.  Never  mind  about  the  arrangement,  so  that  there 
will  be  flowers,  and  a  plenty  of  them ;  then  all  the  household  can  "  cut 
and  come  again,"  without  feeling  that  they  trespass. 

Training  Tomato  Plants. — Many  more  and  better  ripened  toma- 
toes can  be  obtained  when  the  plants  are  carefully  trained,  and  the 
labor  required  in  this  operation  is  slight.  It  is  only  necessary  to 
drive  some  stakes  into  the  ground  about  each  plant,  and  tic  the 
branches  to  it;  this  may  be  done  with  or  without  encircling  hoops. 
One  way  of  training  that  has  approved  itself  is  to  drive  a  strong  stake 


288  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

by  each  plant,  so  that  it  shall  stand  four  or  five  feet  high.  Having 
stopped  the  plant  when  young,  and  made  two  eyes  to  start  near  the 
top,  raise  up  two  stems,  and  as  they  grow,  wind  or  train  them  around 
the  stake  until  the  top  is  reached,  and  there  stop  them,  causing 
numerous  branches  to  form.  This  is  a  very  simple  and  excellent 
method  of  training. 

How  THE  Japanese  Restore  Faded  Flowers, — After  a  bouquet 
is  drooping  beyond  all  remedies  of  fresh  water,  the  Japanese  can 
bring  it  back  to  all  its  first  glory  by  a  very  simple  and  seemingly 
most  destructive  operation.  A  visitor  to  Japan  says  :  "  I  had  received 
some  days  ago  a  delightful  bundle  of  flowers  from  a  Japanese  ac- 
quaintance. They  continued  to  live  in  all  their  beauty  for  nearly 
two  weeks,  when  at  last  they  faded.  Just  as  I  was  about  to  have 
them  thrown  away  the  same  gentleman  (Japanese  gentleman)  came 
to  see  me.  I  showed  him  the  faded  flowers,  and  told  him  that, 
though  lasting  a  long  time,  they  had  now  become  useless.  '  Oh,  no,' 
said  he,  '  only  put  the  ends  of  the  stems  into  the  fire,  and  they  will 
be  as  good  as  before.'  I  was  incredulous ;  so  he  took  them  himself 
and  held  the  stems'  ends  in  the  fire  until  they  were  charred.  This 
was  in  the  morning ;  at  evening  they  were  again  looking  fresh  and 
vigorous,  and  have  continued  so  for  another  week.  What  may  be 
the  true  agent  in  this  reviving  process  I  am  unable  to  determine  fully; 
whether  it  be  the  heat  driving  once  more  the  last  juices  into  every 
leaflet  and  vein,  or  whether  it  be  the  bountiful  supply  of  carbon  fur- 
nished by  the  charring.  I  am  inclined,  however,  to  the  latter  cause, 
as  the  full  effect  was  not  produced  until  some  eight  hours  afterwards, 
and  as  it  seems  that  if  the  heat  was  the  principal  agent,  it  must  have 
been  sooner  followed  by  visible  changes." 

Hyacinths,  Tulips,  etc. — Hyacinths,  tulips.  Narcissus,  and  other 
so-called  Dutch  bulbs,  that  have  been  planted  in  boxes  or  potted  in 
September  or  October,  should  by  November  i.st  be  well  rooted ;  see 
that  they  are  well  rooted  before  you  put  them  in  the  light,  and  when 
they  once  start  to  grow,  if  in  pots,  see  that  they  get  plenty  of  water, 
as  nothing  will  cause  them  to  fail  so  easily  as  want  of  water  just 


FLORICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE.  289 

when  they  are  in  their  growing  state,  ready  to  bloom ;  you  may  once 
in  two  weeks  water  them  with  a  Hquid  manure,  or  some  of  Bowker's 
ammoniated  food  for  plants,  dissolved  in  water;  this  is  very  invigorat- 
ing for  them  just  at  this  time.  Give  them  plenty  of  sun  when  they 
start  to  throw  up  the  flowering  stalk,  and  on  warm  days  let  them 
have  fresh  air. 
19 


THE  LAUNDRY. 

"  Cleanliness  is  next  to  godliness." 

EXT  after  good  food  one  wants  good  washing,  and  a 
home  that  is  poorly  provided  in  this  respect  is  lacking 
in  a  most  essential  feature.  Sweet,  clean  clothes  are  a 
comfort,  and  the  week's  washing,  folded  in  snowy  heaps 
after  a  careful  airing,  is  a  restful  sight  to  a  housekeeper. 
To  wash  well  is  a  gift,  since  there  are  many  who  try  with  all  their 
strength  to  do  it  and  fail.  The  qualification  requisite  is  a  taste  for 
it,  and  appliances  at  hand  with  which  to  wash  easily.  Not  all  city 
homes  are  provided  with  stationar}^  tubs,  wringers  and  other  con- 
veniences, but  where  they  are  furnished  the  work  is  accomplished  with 
greater  speed  and  efficiency  and  the  laundress  is  not  tired  out  from 
the  day's  occupation.  The  work  is  the  hardest,  at  best,  that  falls  to 
women,  and  it  should  be  made  as  easy  as  possible.  It  is  the  work 
that  is  always  allotted  to  them,  and  where  men  are  compelled  to 
take  any  part  in  it,  in  large  institutions  for  instance,  all  mechanical 
appliances  that  can  be  furnished  are  supplied  to  lighten  the  labor. 
Women  take  it  as  it  comes,  and  do  it  under  the  most  discouraging 
of  conditions.  If  they  know  how  to  wash,  knowledge  makes  it 
easier,  but  to  a  young  beginner  it  is  laborious,  discouraging  and 
depressing. 

There  are  directions  without  end  as  to  how  to  wash,  and  no  two 
are  agreed.  In  every  home  there  arc  special  ways  of  doing  work, 
and  each  laundress  has  a  plan  of  her  own.  To  those  who  have  no 
knowledge  on  the  subject  a  few  hints  are  offered  below.    Experience 

allied  to  neatness  makes  the  best  laundresses  we  have,  and  unless  a 

(290) 


THE    LAUNDRY.  29 1 

woman  is  very  tidy  she  will  never  make  a  good  washer  and  cannot 
learn  to  like  it.  To  iron  well  requires  care  and  practice,  but  it  is 
easier  to  learn  to  iron  than  to  wash.  The  clothes  once  clean  and 
ready  to  be  ironed,  the  ironing  seems  a  much  less  laborious  under- 
taking, and  it  certainly  can  be  done  with  less  disarrangement  of  the 
room  or  the  worker's  attire. 

The  best  housekeepers  contend  that  clothes  should  not  be  soaked 
over  night,  because  it  gives  them  a  gray  look,  and  the  soiled  parts 
lying  against  the  clean  portions  streak  them.  Before  beginning  to 
wash,  the  clothes  should  be  assorted,  and  the  fine  ones  kept  separate  all 
through  the  washing.  Rub  the  clothes  in  warm — not  hot — water.  Hot 
water  sets,  instead  of  extracting,  the  dirt.  Turn  them  and  rub  them  till 
perfectly  clean  in  the  first  water.  If  the  water  becomes  much  soiled, 
throw  it  out  and  take  fresh,  for  if  the  water  is  allowed  to  become  very 
much  soiled,  the  clothes  will  be  dingy.  The  clothes  should  then  be 
rubbed  out  as  thoroughly  in  the  second  as  in  the  first  water.  No 
amount  of  rinsing  or  boiling  will  ever  make  clothes  white  which  have 
not  been  thoroughly  rubbed  out. 

After  the  second  rubbing,  put  the  clothes  in  cold  water  to  boil, 
without  rubbing  soap  on  them  or  putting  soap,  in  the  water;  they  arc 
soapy  enough.  Too  much  soap  makes  clothes  yellow  and  stiff.  As 
soon  as  they  begin  to  boil,  remove  them  to  the  "  sudsing  "-water. 
If  they  boil  long,  they  will  be  yellow.  Let  each  article  be  well 
"  soused "  up  and  down  in  the  sudsing-water,  rubbing  them  out 
thoroughly  with  the  hands  to  get  the  suds  out;  wring  dry  and  throw 
in  the  "  rinsing-water,"  which  is  the  last  water.  Let  this  be  slightly 
blued.  Excessive  bluing  is  the  careless  washerwoman's  refuge.  The 
rinsing  is  to  be  as  thorough  as  the  sudsing. 

After  rinsing,  starch.  The  old-fashioned  idea,  that  clothes  require 
to  be  dried  before  being  starched,  is  not  sustained  by  intelligent  ob- 
servation. Dip  the  articles  in  boiling  hot  starch,  plunging  the  hands 
constantly  into  cold  water  to  prevent  their  being  scalded,  and  rubbing 
the  starch  well  in. 

Next  hang  out,  and  be  sure  to  stretch  every  inch  possible  to  the 


292  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

sun  and  the  wind.  Garments  hung  double,  or  in  bunches  or  festoons, 
will  not  bleach. 

Wash  flannels  in  lukewarm  water,  and  rinse  in  water  of  the  same 
temperature.  Avoid  rubbing  soap  upon  the  flannels.  Stretch  them ; 
when  thoroughly  clean,  snap  them  energetically,  and  hang  them  up 
immediately — by  the  fire  if  the  weather  is  bad.  Two  waters  are 
enough  for  flannels.  • 

Bleaching  Flannels. — A  solution  of  one  and  one-quarter  of  a 
pound  of  white  soap  and  three-eighths  of  an  ounce  of  spirits  of 
ammonia,  dissolved  in  twelve  gallons  of  soft  water,  will  impart  a 
beautiful  and  lasting  whiteness  to  any  flannels  dipped  in  it,  no  matter 
how  yellow  they  have  been  previous  to  their  immersion.  After  being 
well  stirred  round  for  a  short  time,  the  articles  should  be  taken  out 
and  well  washed  in  clean,  cold  water. 

When  sprinkling  clothes,  dip  collars,  cuffs  and  shirt-bosoms  in 
cold  starch,  made  so  thin  as  to  look  like  water  with  a  little  milk  in 
it.  Clothes  starched  thus  need  no  wax,  lard,  nor  other  preparation 
to  make  them  iron  easily.  A  smooth,  dead  white  is  generally  more 
highly  esteemed  now  than  the  glazed  look  which  shirt  manufacturers 
give  to  their  linen. 

All-wool  dress  goods  or  colored  flannels  should  be  washed  out 
quickly  in  tepid  water,  rinsed  in  water  of  the  same  temperature,  wrung 
dry,  and  then  folded  up  for  a  time,  together  with  one  or  two  sheets, 
so  that  the  moisture  shall  be  extracted  by  the  cotton  or  linen ;  they 
should  then  be  ironed  till  dry.  A  patent  wringer  (made  of  India- 
rubber  rollers,  which  can  be  adjusted)  is  almost  indispensable  in 
washing.  It  does  not  wear  the  clothes  like  the  twisting  and  wrench- 
ing of  hand-wringing,  and  saves  the  most  exhausting  part  of  the 
wash,  besides  having  the  clothes  drier  than  can  be  the  case  with 
ordinary  hand-wringing. 

Salt  or  beefs-gall  in  the  water  helps  to  set  black.  A  tablespoonful 
of  spirits  of  turpentine  to  a  gallon  of  water  sets  most  blues,  and  alum 
is  very  efficacious  in  setting  green.  Black  or  very  dark  calicoes 
should  be  stiffened  with  gum-arabic — five  cents'  worth  is  enough  for 


THE    LAUNDRY.  293 

a  dress.     If,  however,  starch  is  used,  the  garment  should  be  turned 
wrong  side  out. 

To  Wash  Light-colored  Cashmere,  and  Method  for  Remov 
ING  Spots. — All  spots  should  be  removed  from  the  goods  before  they 
are  put  into  the  water,  and  the  method  must  depend  upon  what  they 
are  and  also  the  color  of  the  goods.  Benzine,  which  should  always; 
be  used  with  caution  because  of  its  inflammable  character,  is  one  of 
the  best  and  quickest  means  of  taking  out  grease.  A  little  rubbed 
lightly  in  the  direction  the  warp  runs  will  usually  remove  it  entirely. 
Get  the  highly  rectified  benzine,  such  as  first-class  druggists  keep. 
Chloroform  rubbed  on  lightly  and  quickly  will  also  remove  grease. 
Unless  done  rapidly  and  finished  by  rubbing  with  a  dry  cloth  it  is 
apt  to  leave  a  slight  stain.  Fruit  stains  can  usually  be  removed  by 
a  little  salts  of  lemon.  Frequently  a  lighted  sulphur  match  held 
under  the  stain  will  drive  it  away.  Acid  stains,  unless  they  be  nitric,  , 
will  yield  to  an  application  of  ammonia,  while  those  produced  by 
alkalies,  such  as  soda,  ammonia,  etc.,  will  usually  disappear  by  the 
application  of  acetic  acid,  diluted  in  a  good  deal  of  water.  Of  course, 
the  use  of  these  things  depends  much  upon  color  and  material. 

After  the  spots  are  removed,  put  the  goods  in  warm  (not  hot)  soft 
water  and  wash  carefully.  Lay  it  while  still  very  damp  upon  the 
ironing-board,  with  a  linen  cloth  over  it,  and  iron  with  a  hot  flat-iron 
until  dry.  Press  a  fold  down  the  centre  of  each  breadth,  and  the 
cashmere  will  look  almost  if  not  quite  as  well  as  new. 

Potato  water  is  excellent  to  wash  black  calicoes  in,  as  it  starches 
the  calico  without  impairing  its  cleanness.  Ordinary  starch  cannot 
be  used.     The  potato  water  should  be  boiled  to  a  thick  consistency. 

Black  bombazine  may  be  nicely  washed  by  making  good  suds, 
and  adding  to  it  a  small  quantity  of  ox-gall.  It  should  be  squeezed 
and  rinsed,  but  not  rubbed  or  wrung  out. 

To  Wash  Blankets. — Wash  them  in  good  suds  until  quite  clean  ; 
if  much  soiled,  they  will  require  two  or  three  waters ;  rin.Te  them  in 
tepid  water  until  clear,  adding  to  the  last  rinsing-water  a  very  little 
fine  soap. 


294  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

To  Clean  Black  Cashmere. — Wash  in  hot  suds  with  a  little  borax 
in  the  water;  rinse  in  bluing  water — very  blue — and  iron  while  damp. 
It  will  look  almost  equal  to  new. 

Washing  Light-colored  Calicoes. — Take  a  tablespoonful  of  alum 
and  dissolve  it  in  enough  lukewarm  water  to  rinse  a  print  dress. 
Dip  the  soiled  dress  into  it,  taking  care  to  wet  thoroughly  every  part 
of  it,  and  then  wring  it  out.  Have  warm  (not  hot)  suds  all  ready  and 
wash  out  the  dress  quickly  ;  then  rinse  it  in  cold  water.  (White  Castile 
soap  is  the  best  for  colored  calicoes  if  it  can  be  commanded.)  Have 
the  starch  ready — but  not  too  hot;  rinse  the  dress  in  it,  wring  it  out 
and  hang  it  out  to  dry,  but  not  in  the  sun.  Place  it  where  the  wind 
will  strike  it  rather  than  the  sun.  When  dry,  iron  directly.  Prints 
should  never  be  sprinkled,  but  if  allowed  to  become  rough-dry,  they 
should  be  ironed  under  a  damp  cloth.  It  is  better  to  wash  them 
some  day  by  themselves,  when  washing  and  ironing  can  be  done  at 
once. 

To  Wash  Delicate  Muslins. — Put  three  pints  of  wheat  bran  and 
a  handful  of  salt  into  a  loose  bag,  and  boil  half  an  hour  in  six  quarts 
of  soft  water.  Use  this  water  for  washing  muslins  or  lawns  with 
delicate  colors,  keeping  at  hand  the  bag  of  bran  to  use  instead  of 
soap,  on  any  soiled  spot  that  will  not  yield  to  slight  rubbing.  Rinse 
the  muslin  in  clear  water  and  dry  quickly  in  the  shade.  Many  colors 
in  calico  goods,  which  are  injured  by  using  the  most  delicate  soap, 
can  be  safely  washed  if  wheat  bran  (  or,  if  more  convenient,  wheat 
flour)  is  boiled  and  used  instead. 

When  washing  cambrics,  do  not  allow  soap  to  come  in  contact 
with  the  fabric. 

To  Wash  Silk  Handkerchiefs. — Wash  them  in  cold  rain-water 
with  a  little  curd  soap ;  then  rinse  them  in  rain-water — cold — slightly 
colored  with  stone-blue ;  wring  well,  and  stretch  them  out  on  a  mat- 
tress, tacking  them  out  tightly.  They  will  look  as  good  as  new  if 
carefully  washed. 

A  teaspoonful  of  spirits  of  ammonia  added  to  the  rinse-water  will 
make  rusty  black  goods  look  as  good  as  new. 


THE    LAUNDRY. 


295 


The  use  of  soda  or  lime  in  washing  clothes  is  dangerous.  They 
are  certain  to  rot  them  in  time.     Borax  is  the  only  safe  article. 

White  Cashmeres  may  be  washed  to  look  like  new  in  cold  water 
with  white  soap;  rinse  in  cold  water,  with  a  little  bluing  in  the  water; 
iron  damp,  and  use  a  moderately  warm  but  not  hot  iron. 

Silk  neckties  can  be  washed  in  rain-water,  to  one  pint  of  which 
add  a  teaspoonful  of  white  honey  and  one  of  hartshorn.  Do  not 
squeeze  but  let  them  drip,  and  when  nearly  dry  press  between  folds 
of  cloth. 

A  FAMOUS  washing  fluid  is  made  by  boiling  one  pound  of  sal-soda 
with  half  a  pound  of  unslaked  lime  in  a  gallon  of  water  twenty  min- 
utes. Drain  off  when  cool,  and  put  the  liquid  in  a  stone  jar.  Put  a 
teacupful  in  the  water  in  which  soiled  white  clothes  arc  soaked ;  well 
rinse  in  warm  water,  and  soap  all  the  seams  and  solid  parts  thoroughly ; 
then  put  the  clothes  in  a  boiler  of  cold  water,  with  which  a  second 
cup  of  the  fluid  has  been  incorporated.  Let  them  boil  for  a  few 
minutes,  and  rinse  in  tepid  water.  By  this  method  clothes  are  made 
beautifully  white  with  little  labor  and  no  detriment,  unless  they  are 
very  delicate  and  trimmed  with  fine  lace. 

For  washing  black  or  navy  blue  linens,  the  following  receipt  is 
an  excellent  one :  Take  two  potatoes,  grated  into  tepid  soft  water 
(after  having  them  washed  and  peeled),  into  which  a  teaspoonful  of 
ammonia  has  been  put.  Wash  the  linens  in  this,  and  rinse  them  in 
cold,  blue  water.  Dry  in  the  shade.  They  will  need  no  starch,  and 
should  be  dried  and  ironed  on  the  wrong  side.  It  is  said  that  an  in- 
fusion of  hay  will  preserve  the  natural  color  in  buff  linens,  and  an 
infusion  of  bran  will  do  the  same  for  brown  linens  and  prints. 

Linen  can  be  washed  beautifully  by  using  refined  borax  instead 
of  soda  as  a  washing-powder.  One  large  handful  of  borax  is  used  to 
every  ten  gallons  of  water,  and  the  saving  of  soap  is  about  one-half 
For  laces  and  cambrics  an  extra  quantity  is  used.  Borax  softens  the 
hardest  water  and  does  not  injure  the  linen. 

To  Wash  Silk  Stockings. — The  best  way  to  wash  all  silk  stock- 
ings is  to  make  a  good  lather  of  curd  soap  and  rain-water ;   use  it 


296  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

nearly  cold,  and  then  wash  each  stocking  separately,  rubbing  as  little 
as  possible.  Rinse  in  clear,  soft  water ;  squeeze  out  the  wet  as  much 
as  possible  in  a  soft  cloth ;  do  not  wring  the  stockings ;  wrap  each 
one  in  a  dry  cloth,  and  when  almost  dry  rub  them  with  a  piece  of 
flannel  always  the  same  way.  A  small  quantity  of  liquid  ammonia 
should  be  added  to  the  lather  when  black  stockings  are  to  be 
washed. 

Another  way  to  Wash  Silk  Stockings, — Make  a  strong  lather 
with  boiling  water  and  curd  soap.  Leave  it  to  get  almost  cold,  then 
divide  it  into  two  parts.  Wash  the  stockings  well  in  one  of  the 
lathers,  pressing  them  up  and  down,  but  avoid  rubbing  as  much  as 
possible.  Squeeze  out  the  wet,  and  then  wash  them  in  the  second 
lather,  in  which  a  few  drops  of  gin  may  be  poured.  Do  not  rinse  in 
fresh  water,  but  squeeze  out  the  wet  very  carefully  without  wringing. 
Lay  them  out  flat  on  a  piece  of  fine  linen,  and  roll  them  up  tightly 
until  almost  dry,  then  rub  with  a  roll  of  flannel.  Black  stockings 
should  be  washed  in  a  cool  lather  of  plain  white  soap  and  rain  water, 
with  a  little  ammonia  mixed  in  it.  Keep  from  the  air  while  drying 
by  rolling  in  a  cloth ;  do  not  wring,  but  press  the  moisture  well  out. 
Borax  and  water  form  a  good  rinse. 

How  TO  DO  UP  Lace  Curtains. — First  take  them  down  and  give 
them  a  good  shaking,  then  rub  them  through  two  waters  or  pound 
and  rub  them ;  put  in  a  pillow-case  to  boil,  which  prevents  their 
being  torn  ;  suds  and  rinse  in  bluing  water  and  dry.  Choose  a  warm, 
sunshiny  day  to  starch  them.  Take  quilting-frames  out  in  the  sun, 
place  them  upon  four  chairs  (the  same  as  for  a  quilt)  and  pin  a  sheet 
on  them ;  use  silver  gloss  starch  and  make  a  cooked  starch,  bluing 
it  a  little ;  starch  two  pieces  and  pin  on  the  sheet  together  stretching 
them  lengthwise  as  far  as  possible ;  then  pin  the  edges  as  near  as 
two  inches  before  the  edges  are  quite  dry  (the  middle  dries  first) ;  take 
them  on  the  ironing-sheet  and  smooth  them  nicely. 

When  washing  fine  laces,  do  not  use  starch  at  all  in  the  last 
water  in  which  they  are  rinsed ;  put  in  a  little  fine  white  sugar ;  dis- 
solve it  thoroughly,  and  the  result  will  be  pleasing. 


THE    LAUNDRY. 


297 


Salt  should  never  be  used  in  starch.  Although  it  gives  the  linen 
a  good  appearance  and  makes  it  iron  smoothly,  it  surely  destroys 
the  fabric. 

Hard  or  hot  water  should  never  be  used  in  washing  or  rinsing 
any  woollen  goods.  Moderately  warm  suds — never  using  any  soap 
directly  on  the  goods  if  possible — with  several  rinsings  in  lukewarm 
water,  will  cleanse  sufficiently.  Press  and  squeeze  woollen  goods, 
but  do  not  wring  them.  When  squeezed  dry,  shake  them  out  so  as 
to  avoid  wrinkles. 

The  Virtues  of  Borax. — The  washerwomen  of  Holland  and  Bel- 
gium, so  proverbially  clean,  and  who  get  up  their  linen  so  beautifully 
white,  use  refined  borax  as  washing-powder,  instead  of  soda,  in  the 
proportion  of  one  large  handful  of  borax  powder  to  about  ten  gal- 
lons of  boiling  water;  they  save  in  soap  nearly  half  All  of  the  large 
washing  establishments  adopt  the  same  mode.  For  laces,  cambrics, 
etc.,  an  extra  quantity  of  the  powder  is  used,  and  for  crinolines  (re- 
quiring to  be  made  stiff)  a  strong  solution  is  necessary.  Borax,  being 
a  neutral  salt,  does  not  in  the  slightest  degree  injure  the  texture  of 
the  linen.     Its  effect  is  to  soften  the  hardest  water. 

Old  boot-tops  lined  make  excellent  iron-holders. 

Use  wire  rope  for  clothes-line.  It  saves  annoyance,  is  cheaper  in 
the  long  run,  and  much  more  convenient. 

In  putting  tubs  away  set  them  so  that  no  two  handles  will  come 
together,  and  keep  them  in  a  damp  place,  or  you  will  find  only  a  pile 
of  staves  when  you  go  to  use  them  in  the  Monday's  wash. 

To  Remove  Mildew. — Soak  the  parts  of  the  cloth  that  are  mil- 
dewed in  two  parts  of  chloride  of  lime  to  four  parts  of  water  for  about 
two  hours,  or  till  the  mildew  has  disappeared ;  then  thoroughly  rinse 
it  in  clear  water. 

Sour  milk  removes  iron  rust  from  white  goods. 

To  make  silk  which  has  been  wrinkled  appear  exactly  like  new, 
sponge  it  on  the  surface  with  a  weak  solution  of  gum-arabic  or  white 
glue,  and  iron  on  the  wrong  side. 

To  DO  up  Black  Silk. — Boil  an  old  kid  glove,  cut  up  in  small 


298  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

shreds,  in  a  pint  of  water,  till  the  water  is  reduced  to  a  half-pint,  then 
sponge  the  silk  with  it ;  fold  it  down  tight,  and,  ten  minutes  after, 
iron  it  on  the  wrong  side,  while  wet.  The  silk  will  retain  its  soft- 
ness and  lustre,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  have  the  "  body  "  of  new 
silk. 

To  Keep  Silk. — Silk  goods  should  not  be  folded  in  white  paper, 
as  the  chloride  of  lime  used  in  bleaching  the  paper  will  impair  the 
color  of  the  silk.  Brown  or  blue  paper  is  better.  White  satin  dresses 
should  be  pinned  up  in  blue  paper,  with  coarse  brown  paper  on  the 
outside,  sewed  together  on  the  edge.  Silk  intended  for  dresses 
should  not  be  kept  in  the  piece  long,  as  lying  in  folds  causes  it  to 
crack  or  split,  particularly  if  thickened  with  gum. 

To  Renovate  Silks. — Sponge  faded  silks  with  warm  water  and 
soap ;  then  rub  them  with  a  dry  cloth  on  a  flat  board ;  afterward  iron 
them  on  the  inside  with  a  smoothing-iron.  Old  black  silks  may  be 
improved  by  sponging  them  with  spirits.  In  this  case  the  ironing 
may  be  done  on  the  right  side,  thin  paper  being  spread  over  to  pre- 
vent glazing. 

Try  pure  benzine  to  remove  stains  from  hair-cloth  furniture. 

To  take  out  Scorch. — If  any  article  has  been  scorched  in  iron- 
ing, lay  it  where  bright  sunshine  will  fall  directly  upon  it.  It  will 
take  it  out  entirely. 

Putting  away  Clothes. — Before  putting  away  summer  or  winter 
clothes,  mend,  clean,  bruaii,  shake  well,  fold  smoothly,  sprinkle  gum- 
camphor  on  every  fold  and  on  the  bottom  of  trunks  or  closets.  Fine 
dresses,  cloaks,  etc.,  should  be  wrapped  in  sheets  or  towels  separately, 
and,  as  far  as  possible,  be  laid  away  lightly. 

To  Remove  Stains  from  Linen. — Tartaric  acid  or  salts  of  lemon 
will  quickly  remove  stains  from  linen.  Put  less  than  a  half-teaspoon- 
ful  of  salts  or  acid  in  a  tablespoonful  of  water,  wet  the  stain  with  it, 
and  lay  it  in  the  sun  for  at  least  an  hour ;  wet  it  once  or  twice  in  the 
time  with  cold  water.  If  not  entirely  out  after  the  first  trial,  repeat, 
and  lay  it  again  in  the  sun. 

To   Remove  Grease  from  Silk,  Cotton,  Linen,  or  Worsted 


THE    LAUNDRY.  299 

Goods. — Rub  magnesia  freely  on  both  sides  of  silk  or  worsted  goods, 
and  hang  away.  Benzine,  ether,  or  soap  will  take  out  spots  from 
silk,  but  the  goods  must  not  be  rubbed.  A  towel  folded  several 
times  should  be  laid  under  the  silk,  so  as  to  absorb  the  grease.  Oil 
of  turpentine  or  benzine  will  remove  spots  of  paint,  varnish  or  pitch 
from  white  or  colored  cotton  or  woollen  goods.  After  using,  it  shoul'd 
be  washed  in  soap-suds. 

Cream  of  Tartar  rubbed  upon  soiled  white  kid  gloves  cleanses 
them  well. 

Hartshorn,  rubbed  on  silk  or  woollen  garments,  will  restore  the 
color  without  injuring  them. 

Fly-spots  can  be  removed  with  a  camel's-hair  brush  dipped  into 
spirits  of  wine,  and  then  applied  to  the  spot. 

Crape  can  be  stiffened  by  holding  it  over  potatoes  or  rice  while 
boiling,  and  then  let  it  dry  by  the  fire. 

Gin  is  an  excellent  thing  to  restore  rusty  crape  (and  it  is  perhaps 
the  best  use  that  gin  can  be  put  to).  Dip  the  crape  in  it,  and  let  it 
get  well  saturated,  then  clap  it  till  dry,  and  smooth  it  out  with  a 
moderately  hot  iron. 

.  Water-spots  may  be  removed  from  black  crape  by  clapping  it  until 
dry.  If  dried  before  the  spot  was  noticed,  it  will  need  to  be  dampened 
and  then  clapped  in  the  hands. 

Sand-paper  is  the  best  polisher  for  smoothing-irons.  It  removes 
all  roughness  and  starch. 

Bar-soap  should  be  kept  in  a  dry  place  several  weeks  before  using. 
It  will  last  much  longer. 

Spirits  of  Turpentine  is  good  to  take  grease  or  drops  of  paint 
out  of  cloth.     Apply  it  till  the  grease  can  be  scraped  off 

Feathers  may  be  cleaned  by  dipping  them  into  hot  water.  Dry 
by  shaking. 

Feathers  may  be  bleached  by  exposure  to  the  vapor  of  burning 
sulphur — sulphurous  acid — in  a  moist  atmosphere,  but  it  is  necessary 
to  remove  the  oily  matters  from  them  before  they  can  be  satisfactorily 
so  bleached.     This  may  be  accomplished  by  immersing  them  for  a 


300  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

short  time  in  good  naphtha  or  benzine,  rinsing  in  a  second  vessel  of 
the  same,  and  thoroughly  drying  by  exposure  to  the  air.  This  treat- 
ment does  not  injure  the  feathers. 

To  take  out  tar,  paint,  or  resin,  from  either  linen  or  woollen, 
pour  a  little  alcohol  on  the  place  and  let  it  soak  half  an  hour,  and 
rub  gently. 

To  Bleach  Hose. — Strong  chlorine  water  applied  only  to  the 
stains  on  white  hose,  and  well  rinsed  afterward,  will  bleach  them 
nicely. 

Grease-spots  may  be  removed  from  either  silk  or  woollen  fabrics 
by  making  a  paste  of  calcined  magnesia  or  carbonate  of  magnesia 
and  water,  and  putting  it  on  with  a  brush.  Let  it  dry  in  a  warm 
place,  and  remove  the  dried  mass  carefully  with  a  knife  and  dry,  clean 
brush  ;  if  necessary,  repeat  the  operation  till  the  spot  has  disappeared. 
The  use  of  a  hot  iron  on  the  dried  mass  hastens  the  operation ;  but 
it  is  dangerous,  as  it  colors  the  grease  spot  brown. 

Cloth  garments  can  be  cleaned  by  wetting  a  sponge  in  warm 
water,  and  after  squeezing  it  until  nearly  diy,  sponge  one  place  after 
another  until  the  garment  has  been  cleansed.  All  dust  and  soil  will 
be  absorbed  by  the  sponge,  and  unless  there  is  very  much,  soil  pure 
water  is  better  than  anything  else.  By  repeating  the  operation  of 
sponging  several  times,  and  each  time  wrapping  it  in  a  piece  of  black 
alpaca,  the  cleansing  will  be  entirely  effected,  and  the  goods  will 
look  fresher  than  if  any  kind  of  liquids  had  been  added  to  the  water. 

To  Remove  Fruit-stains. — In  the  season  of  fruits  the  napkins 
used  at  table,  and  often  the  handkerchiefs  and  other  articles,  will  be- 
come stained.  Those  who  have  access  to  a  good  drug  store  can  pro- 
cure a  bottle  of  Javelle  water.  If  the  stains  are  wet  with  this  before 
the  articles  are  put  into  the  wash  they  will  be  completely  removed. 
Those  who  cannot  get  Javelle  water  can  make  a  solution  of  chloride 
of  lime.  Four  ounces  of  the  chloride  of  lime  are  to  be  put  into  a  quart 
of  water  in  a  bottle,  and  after  thorough  shaking  allow  the  dregs  to 
settle.  The  clear  liquid  will  remove  the  stains  as  readily  as  Javelle 
water,  but  in  using  this  one  precaution  must  be  observed.     Be  care- 


THE    LAUNDRY.  3OI 

ful  to  thoroughly  rinse  the  article  to  which  this  solution  has  been 
applied  in  clear  water  before  bringing  it  in  contact  with  soap,  When 
Javelle  water  is  used  this  precaution  is  not  necessary,  but  with  the 
chloride  of  lime  liquid  it  is  or  the  articles  will  be  harsh  and  stiff. 

To  Color  Brown  (i). — Take  a  peck  of  hemlock  bark  steeped  in  brass 
and  a  little  alum  to  set  the  color;  after  the  goods  are  taken  out 
dip  in  lime-water;  this  makes  a  dark  tan  color.  If  something  darker 
is  wished,  dip  the  goods  in  a  weak  black  dye,  then  put  in  the  brown 
dye. 

To  Color  Brown  (2). — i  lb.  catechu,  i  oz.  of  blue  vitriol,  2  ozs.  of 
bichromate  potash ;  dissolve  the  catechu  and  vitriol  together,  boil  a 
few  moments  and  then  add  the  rags,  and  boil  twenty  minutes,  wring 
out  and  put  in  a  kettle  with  the  potash-water,  and  dye  fifteen  minutes, 
then  rinse  in  clear,  cold  water. 

For  starched  fringe  of  tidies,  etc.,  instead  of  straightening  the 
fringe  after  ironing,  fold  the  article,  so  that  all  the  fringe  will  be  to- 
gether in  a  line,  dip  fringe  in  hot  water,  shake  well,  fold  in  the  ironed 
creases  and  place  on  smooth  surface  to  finish  drying. 

Brush  silk  with  a  piece  of  cotton  velvet  rolled  up  tight.  For 
washing,  pour  a  pint  of  boiling  water  on  a  tablespoonful  of  alcohol. 
Let  it  stand  till  tepid,  and  sponge  the  goods  with  it. 

To  Bleach  Cotton. — A  very  good  way  to  bleach  cotton-cloth  is 
to  soak  it  in  buttermilk  for  a  few  days.  Another  way  is  to  make  a 
good  suds ;  put  from  one  to  two  tablespoonfuls  of  turpentine  into  it 
before  putting  the  clothes  in.  Wash  as  usual,  wringing  from  the  boil 
and  drying  without  rinsing.  By  using  one  tablespoonful  of  turpen- 
tine in  the  first  suds  on  washing-days,  it  will  save  half  the  labor  of 
rubbing,  and  the  clothes  will  never  become  yellow,  but  will  remain  a 
pure  white. 

ScouRiNG-BALLS  TO  Remove  Grease  FROM  Cloth. — Soft-soap  and 
Fuller's  earth,  of  each  half  a  pound ;  beat  them  well  together  in  a 
mortar,  and  form  into  cakes.  The  spot,  first  moistened  with  water, 
is  rubbed  with  a  cake  and  allowed  to  dry,  when  it  is  well  rubbed 
with  a  little  warm  water,  and  afterward  rinsed  or  rubbed  off  clean. 


302  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

To  Take  Wax  or  Grease  Out  of  Cloth. — Hold  a  red-hot  iron 
— a  poker  will  do — within  an  inch  of  the  cloth,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
the  wax  will  evaporate,  leaving  a  dark  spot.  Then  fold  heavy  brown 
paper  and  put  it  on  both  sides  of  the  spot,  and  press  with  an  iron. 
If  any  stain  remains,  wipe  it  over  with  a  piece  of  woollen  cloth  saturated 
in  benzine  or  alcohol. 

To  color  drab,  take  willow-bark  and  a  little  copperas. 

To  color  gray,  put  in  some  blue  vitriol  with  the  drab  dye. 

The  glossy  stiffness  of  a  black  hat  is  made  with  "  milliner's  glue." 
It  can  be  had  at  the  drug  stores. 

Cotton  rags  can  be  colored  a  fast  brown  with  a  dye  of  butternut 
bark,  adding  ^  pound  of  madder  to  a  kettleful  of  dye.  They  will 
not  fade. 

To  Revive  Old  Kid  Gloves,  make  a  thick  mucilage  by  boiling 
a  handful  of  flaxseed ;  add  a  little  dissolved  soap  ;  then,  when  the 
mixture  cools,  with  a  piece  of  white  flannel  wipe  the  gloves,  previously 
fitted  to  the  hand ;  use  only  enough  to  take  off  the  dirt,  without 
wetting  through  the  glove. 

Bleaching  Process. — Two  pounds  of  sal-soda  and  half  a  pound 
of  chloride  of  lime.  Put  half  a  gallon  of  water  to  the  lime  and  let 
it  stand  all  night.  In  the  morning  dissolve  the  soda  in  three  and  a 
half  gallons  of  water;  add  to  the  lime-water  and  strain.  Immerse  the 
cloth  in  boiling  suds ;  then  take  out  and  put  directly  into  the  mix- 
ture ;  leave  it  in  for  half  an  hour,  then  rinse  the  muslin  thoroughly 
and  lay  upon  the  grass  or  snow,  or  hang  upon  a  line  in  the  sun.  To 
make  it  very  white,  dampen  occasionally  and  leave  it  out  for  two  or 
three  days. 

Starch  (very  fine). — Two  tablespoonfuls  of  starch  wet  in  cold 
water ;  add  one  teaspoonful  each  of  gum  arabic,  white  wax  and  fine 
salt;  pour  on  one  quart  of  boiling  water;  boil  ten  minutes,  then 
strain ;  add  two  more  tablespoonfuls  of  starch  wet  in  cold  water  to 
the  strained  starch.  If  any  is  left  over  it  can  be  kept  for  next  time ; 
it  will  be  good  though  thin  as  water.  If  a  polishing  iron  is  used  after 
the  usual  ironing  the  clothes  will  look  like  new. 


THE    LAUNDRY.  303 

The  Care  of  Towels. — Never  put  a  new  towel  in  the  wash  until 
you  have  overcas':  the  fringed  edge.  The  use  of  this  is  obvious  the 
moment  one  is  told  of  it,  though  a  dozen  towels  might  be  worn  out 
before  one  would  discover  it.  If,  when  towels  are  washed,  the  fringe 
is  shaken  well  before  they  are  hung  up  to  dry,  che  fresh  appearance 
will  be  preserved  for  a  long  time.  If  vigorously  shaken,  that  is  all 
that  is  necessary ;  otherwise  it  is  best  to  have  the  laundress  whip  the 
fringe  over  the  clean  back  of  a  kitchen  chair.  This  is  much  better 
than  any  combing  process.  Besides,  it  does  not  wear  the  fringe  so 
much.  Towels  with  handsome,  bright  borders  should  never  be  boiled, 
or  allowed  to  lie  in  very  hot  water ;  they  should  not  be  used  till  they 
are  so  much  soiled  that  they  need  vigorous  rubbing  to  make  them 
clean.  A  gentle  rubbing  in  two  suds  and  then  conscientious  rinsing, 
m  warm  water  and  then  in  cold,  ought  to  be  all  that  is  required. 

Boiling  Water  will  remove  tea-stains  and  many  fruit-stains ;  pour 
the  water  through  the  stain,  and  thus  prevent  it  from  spreading 
(hrough  the  fabric.  Ripe  tomatoes  will  remove  ink  and  other  stains 
from  white  cloth ;  also  from  the  hands. 


THE  TOILET. 

"A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  forever;  its  loveliness  increases;  it  will   never  pass  into 

nothingness." 


^HE  old  and  trite  saying  that  beauty  is  but  skin-deep  and 
ugly  is  to  the  bone  is  not  true  of  the  higher  types  of 
beauty.  It  may  be  of  that  ephemeral  type  that  lives 
^k  through  the  flush  of  youth  and  passes  away  before 
the  sunrise  of  life  is  passed.  But  beauty  worthy  of  the 
name  is  found  in  the  perfect  outline  of  contour,  in  expression,  in 
shapely  lips  and  handsome  eyes ;  and  these  do  not  pass  away  with 
the  first  years  of  life  but  live  on,  if  their  possessor  wills  it  so,  even 
until  old  age.  The  complexion  is  the  one  tell-tale  feature  that  must 
needs  be  watched  to  keep  it  young,  but  with  good  health  it  can  be 
kept  attractive.  Its  deadly  enemy  is  ill-health,  and  the  standard  of 
health  is  so  far  below  par  that  women  seldom  have  handsome  com- 
plexions after  their  youthful  days.  Abundance  of  out-door  exercise 
and  frequent  baths  will  be  the  best  cosmetic  that  can  be  used  for  it, 
and  these,  with  an  even  temper  and  plenty  of  occupation,  will  tend  to 
keep  it  young.  There  are  external  remedies  that  will  assist  nature, 
and  some  of  the  best  are  here  siven.  Madame  Recamier  was  a 
woman  so  renowned  for  her  beauty  that  its  fame  has  made  her  historic. 
Her  strongest  point  was  her  blooming  complexion,  and  this  she  kept 
fresh  by  constant  attention  to  it,  never  washing  her  face  in  cold 
water,  and  using  none  other  than  rain-water.  It  will  repay  any  one 
who  desires  a  good  complexion  to  use  buttermilk,  the  best  bleacher 
ever  known.  It  is  not  always  possible  to  get  it,  but  when  it  can  be 
had,  it  is  the  first  of  cosmetics.  Next  after  it  is  recommended  a  com- 
position made  of  the  following  ingredients:  Three  ounces  of  ground 
(304) 


THE   TOILET.  305 

barley,  one  ounce  of  honey  and  the  white  of  one  egg,  mixed  to  a  paste 
and  spread  thickly  on  the  cheeks,  nose  and  forehead  before  going  to 
bed.  This  must  be  allowed  to  dry  on  the  face  as  far  as  it  will,  and 
then  cover  the  cheeks  with  soft  linen  rags  to  protect  the  pillows,  over 
which,  however,  a  towel  should  be  spread.  Any  woman  who  will 
persevere  in  the  use  of  this  paste  a  month  will  find  her  complexion 
so  greatly  improved  that  she  will  not  regret  the  time  and  labor  be- 
stowed upon  it.  Nothing  can  be  accomplished  without  effort,  and 
women,  even  the  most  persistent,  neglect  to  follow  up  any  attempts 
they  make  in  this  direction.  It  is  well  to  say,  however,  that  un- 
less the  system  is  kept  in  good  order  and  the  bath  a  frequent 
luxury,  there  is  little  benefit  to  be  derived  from  cosmetics.  They 
only  improve  the  texture  of  the  surface  skin,  and  unless  the  blood 
is  in  healthy  condition  their  full  benefit  is  not  obtained.  Women 
owe  it  to  themselves  to  be  attractive,  and  they  should  seek  by 
every  means  in  their  power  to  be  healthy.  This  is  the  foundation 
of  good  looks.  No  face  can  be  handsome  that  is  not  animated,  and 
unhealthy  people  are  rarely  bright  or  sparkling  in  appearance. 
Therefore  to  be  handsome  the  establishment  of  good  health  is  the 
first  step,  and  then  the  use  of  judicious  cosmetics  is  recommended. 

To  those  who  are  unselfish  enough  to  desire  to  be  pleasing  to 
others  in  looks,  as  they  should  be  in  manner  and  behavior,  these  few 
directions  are  offered,  and  if  they  awaken  an  interest  in  the  matter, 
the  reader  can  study  the  subject  in  works  devoted  especially  to  the 
art  of  beautifying,  an  art  that  will  become  more  and  more  familiar 
to  us  as  the  interest  now  being  manifested  in  aesthetics  develops 
and  expands. 

To  Remove  Wrinkles. — Put  pieces  of  court-plaster  on  the  face 
where  the  wrinkles  are  inclined  to  come,  just  before  going  to  bed, 
and  remove  in  the  morning.  The  plaster  contracts  the  skin  and 
prevents  its  sinking  into  creases  and  lines.  It  also  protects  and 
softens  the  skin.  Warm  water  should  always  be  used  to  wash  the 
face  in,  as  it  keeps  off  wrinkles. 

To  Remove  Wrinkles  (2). — To  one  fluid  ounce  of  tincture  of  gum 
20 


3o6  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

benzoin  and  seven  fluid  ounces  (distilled  rose-water,  add  one-half 
ounce  glycerine.  Bathe  face,  neck,  and  hands  with  it  at  night,  let* 
ting  it  dry  on.  Wash  off  in  the  morning  with  a  very  little  pure  white 
Castile  soap  and  soft  water.  If  the  water  is  hard,  add  a  little  dis- 
solved  borax.  This  is  a  famous  cosmetic,  and  has  been  sold  under 
various  names.  It  is  an  excellent  remedy  for  tan,  sunburn,  and 
freckles  also. 

Wrinkles  are  painted  out  of  faces  by  a  process  now  coming  into 
use.  The  coloring,  whether  white  or  pink,  is  moistened  with  fine, 
thin  shellac  varnish.  Then  the  wrinkled  parts  of  the  skin  are  col- 
ored and  held  at  a  sufficient  tension  to  smooth  out  the  wrinkles. 
The  varnish  penetrates  and  stiffens  the  skin  in  drying,  and  a  smooth 
surface  is  left.  A  bottle  of  shellac  is  among  the  toilet  articles  of 
many  New  York  women,  it  is  claimed,  and  some  of  them  have  ac- 
quired a  wonderful  degree  of  skill  in  using  it.  The  drawback  is 
that  it  soon  cracks,  roughens,  and  is  hard  to  remove.  A  renewal  is 
needed  every  day,  and  the  result  must  be  permanently  injurious  t*i 
the  skin. 

Pure  Glycerine  hurts  the  skin  and  reddens  it.  Rose-water  should 
be  mixed  with  it  to  be  efficacious.  The  nicest  preparation  for 
chapped  hands  is  composed  of  quince  seed  and  whiskey.  There  is 
no  rule  as  to  proportion.  Put  the  seeds  in  a  bottle,  and  pour  in 
enough  whiskey  to  cover  them.  As  this  thickens,  add  more  whis- 
key until  it  is  of  the  right  consistency.  This  preparation  dries  off 
quickly,  and  leaves  a  most  agreeable  odor. 

Lavender  Scent  Bags. — Half  a  pound  of  lavender  flowers  free 
from  stalk,  half  an  ounce  of  dried  thyme  and  mint,  a  quarter  of  an 
ounce  of  ground  cloves  and  carraways,  one  ounce  of  dried  common 
salt ;  mix  them  well  together,  and  put  them  into  silk  or  cambric 
bags. 

A  PERFECTLY  harmless  cosmetic  is  as  follows :  four  ounces  of  al- 
cohol, one  ounce  of  gum  benzoin;  mix,  bottle  and  shake  well ;  let 
stand  in  a  warm  place  three  days,  shaking  occasionally ;  strain,  and 
to  one  pint  of  rain  water  put  a  teaspoonful  of  the  mixture.     Using 


THE    TOILET.  3O7 

this   in    the  water  you  wash  in  will    render  the  skin  smooth  and 
white. 

The  Turkish  Bath  is  the  best  medicine  women  can  take  who 
lead  sedentary  lives.  It  is  like  sleep,  a  sweet  restorer  and  tonic  for 
both  mind  and  body. 

Harmless  Face-Powders. — Rice  powder,  though  expensive,  is 
warranted  perfectly  harmless.  Refined  chalk  is  the  safest  thing  to 
use,  and  costs  far  less  than  if  put  up  under  some  other  name  and 
sold  in  boxes.  Cascarilla  powder  is  much  used  by  Cuban  ladies, 
and  is  considered  harmless.  Wash  the  face  with  thick  suds  from  gly- 
cerine soap,  and,  when  dry,  dust  on  the  powder  with  a  puff  or  piece . 
of  chamois  skin. 

To  Keep  the  Hands  from  Chapping. — Use  white  Castile  soap ; 
and  always,  after  washing,  dry  and  rub  thoroughly  with  a  coarse 
towel.  Sometimes  the  use  of  a  little  pulverized  corn-starch  will 
absorb  the  moisture  and  prove  beneficial. 

For  thoroughly  Cleansing  the  Hair. — In  a  pint  bottle  put  a 
spoonful  of  olive  oil,  and  add  two  ounces  of  best  spirits  of  ammonia 
or  hartshorn ;  shake ;  then  mix  with  three  ounces  of  alcohol,  and 
when  thoroughly  mixed  fill  the  bottle  with  soft  water.  Remember 
to  put  in  the  order  named,  or  you  will  have  "  stuff,"  and  no  chemical 
union  at  all.  To  apply,  take  a  spoonful  or  two  of  this  with  a  little 
warm  water ;  dip  a  sponge  or  rag  in  and  wet  the  scalp  thoroughly ; 
now  rinse  off  in  plenty  of  warm  water,  and  you  will  be  surprised  at 
the  amount  of  dirt,  though  you  may  have  thought  your  head  per- 
fectly clean.  For  the  heads  of  young  infants  it  is  just  the  thing, 
as  it  instantly  removes  the  dirty  scurf  without  pain  or  trouble.  It 
should  be  rather  weaker  for  a  babe  than  for  an  adult. 

Another  Way  of  Cleaning  the  Scalp. — A  teaspoonful  of  pow- 
dered borax,  and  a  teaspoonful  of  spirits  of  hartshorn,  dissolved  in  a 
quart  of  soft  water  and  applied  to  the  head  with  a  soft  sponge,  and 
then  rubbed  dry  with  a  towel,  is  an  excellent  wash  for  cleaning 
the  scalp.     Once  a  week  is  often  enough  to  use  it. 

A  good  wash  for  the  head,  which  will  remove  dandruff  and  prevent 


3o8  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

the  hair  from  falling  off,  is  made  as  follows :  Put  two  tablespoonfuls 
of  sulphur  into  a  quart  of  warm  rain  water.  As  it  will  not  readily 
dissolve  it  must  be  shaken  several  times  daily  for  a  week  or  so,  when 
it  will  settle  to  the  bottom.  Pour  off  this  liquid  from  the  sulphur 
and  add  to  it  three  tablespoonfuls  of  glycerine,  when  it  is  ready  to 
use.     Apply  to  the  scglp  at  least  once  a  day. 

To  Disperse  Freckles. — Take  one  ounfce  of  lemon  juice,  quarter 
of  a  drachm  of  sugar ;  mix  and  let  them  stand  a  few  days  in  a  glass 
bottle  till  the  liquor  is  fit  for  use,  then  rub  it  on  the  hands  and  face 
occasionally. 

To  Disperse  Freckles  (2). — Mix  a  pint  of  sour  milk  and  a  small 
quantity  of  horse-radish ;  let  the  mixture  stand  over-night,  and  use 
as  a  wash  three  times  a  day  until  the  freckles  disappear. 

Nervous,  excitable  women  can  never  have  good  complexions.  The 
skin  is  affected  by  the  emotions,  as  it  is  by  cold  or  heat,  and  the 
first  effort  a  nervous  woman  should  make  is  to  control  herself.  Plenty 
of  sleep  is  the  first  requisite  and  sure  panacea. 

Pure  white  Castile  soap  is  the  best  for  toilet  purposes.  It  is  odor- 
less, and  is  therefore  best  suited  for  bathing  pui-poses. 

A  VERY  pleasant  perfume  may  be  made  of  the  following  ingredi- 
ents :  Take  of  cloves,  carra way-seed,  nutmeg,  mace,  cinnamon  and 
Tonquin  beans,  of  each  one  ounce ;  then  add  as  much  Florentine 
orris-root  as  will  equal  the  other  ingredients  put  together.  Grind 
the  whole  well  to  powder,  and  then  put  it  in  little  bags  among 
clothing. 

Buttermilk  as  a  Cosmetic. — Bathe  the  face  in  buttermilk,  sour, 
of  course.  Take  a  soft  rag,  dip  into  a  cup  of  buttermilk  and  wash 
every  part  of  the  face,  neck  and  hands.  If  there  has  been  a  greater 
exposure  to  the  sun  than  usual,  after  washing  the  face  well  squeeze 
out  the  cloth  and  just  wipe  the  skin  off,  and  let  it  remain  on  without 
washing  till  morning.  You  will  be  astonished  to  see  how  soon  the 
freckles  and  tan  will  disappear.  For  keeping  the  hands  white  and 
the  skin  soft,  there  is  nothing  equal  to  buttermilk.  When  one  gets 
•burned  with   the  hot   sun.  one   or  two  bathincrs   in   buttermilk  will 


THE    TOILET.  3O9 

cause  the  smarting  to  cease,  take  out  the  inflammation,  and  render  it 
comfortable  quicker  than  any  other  remedy  ever  tried.  There  is 
something  in  the  acid  contained  in  the  buttermilk  that  does  the  work. 
When  one  has  stained  fingers,  with  either  berries,  apples  or  nuts,  it 
will  remove  the  stains  almost  immediately.  It  is  particularly  cooling 
to  the  skin. 

Oatmeal  and  buttermilk  together  possess  beautifying  qualities 
which  render  them  desirable  on  every  toilet-table. 

Toilet  Soap. — Drippings,  which  accumulate  in  almost  every 
household,  can  be  used  for  the  grease.  They  should  first  be  boiled 
in  water,  and  then  left  to  cool ;  afterward  they  should  be  removed 
from  the  water  and  boiled  alone  until  the  water  is  expelled.  The 
whiter  the  grease  can  be  made  the  better  the  soap  will  be.  The  in- 
gredients of  the  soap  are  six  pounds  of  sal-soda,  seven  pounds  of 
grease,  three  pounds  of  unslacked  lime,  four  gallons  of  soft  water, 
and  one-half  pound  of  borax.  Boil  the  soda  and  lime  in  the  water 
until  they  are  dissolved ;  let  the  mixture  stand  over-night  to  settle ; 
pour  off  the  clear  lye,  to  which  add  the  grease  and  pulverized  borax, 
and  boil  to  the  consistency  of  honey.  Take  the  mixture  from  the 
stove,  stir  in  one  ounce  of  oil  of  sassafras  or  lavender,  and  pour  it 
into  a  tub,  or,  what  is  still  better,  a  tight,  shallow  box,  to  cool,  and 
when  cold  cut  into  bars  and  put  on  boards  to  dry. 

CouRTi-PLASTER  is  made  of  thin  silk,  first  dipped  in  dissolved  isin- 
glass and  dried,  then  dipped  several  times  in  the  white  of  an  egg  and 
dried. 

A  GOOD  method  for  removing  superfluous  hair  is  as  follows :  Take 
a  match  and  let  it  burn  half  down  so  as  to  get  all  the  sulphur  off; 
then  pass  it  quickly  over  the  lip,  and  it  will  remove  every  particle  of 
hair.  Do  this  about  once  in  every  two  weeks  and  the  lip  will  be  as 
smooth  as  you  could  wish. 

To  Remove  Flesh-worms. — Wash  with  warm  water  and  rub 
hard  with  a  coarse  towel,  and  then  apply  a  little  of  the  following 
preparation :  Liquor  of  potassa,  i  oz. ;  cologne,  2  ozs. ;  white  brandy, 
4  ozs. 


310  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Crimping  Hair. — To  make  the  hair  stay  in  crimp,  take  two  penny- 
worth of  gum-arabic,  and  add  to  it  just  enough  boiling  water  to  dis- 
solve it.  When  dissolved,  add  enough  alcohol  to  make  it  rather  thin. 
Let  this  stand  all  night,  and  then  bottle  it  to  prevent  the  alcohol  from 
evaporating.  This  put  on  the  hair  at  night,  after  it  is  done  up  in 
paper  or  pins,  will  make  it  stay  in  crimp  the  hottest  day,  and  is  per- 
fectly harmless. 

To  persons  troubled  with  an  unpleasant  breath  the  following 
mouth-washes  will  be  found  useful  and  harmless  to  the  teeth  :  Tinc- 
ture of  myrrh,  about  ten  drops  in  a  glass  of  water,  is  a  pleasant 
mouth-wash,  as  is  also  a  few  drops  of  eau-de-cologne  put  into  the 
water.  Camphorated  water  is  another  remedy,  although  not  so 
pleasant  to  some  persons.  A  small  piece  of  licorice  placed  in  the 
mouth  and  kept  there  until  it  melts  is  often  found  effective  when 
other  methods  fail. 

Preservation  of  the  Teeth. — The  importance  of  paying  proper 
attention  to  the  teeth  cannot  be  overestimated.  One  great  cause  of 
the  decay  of  the  teeth  is  the  presence  of  bits  of  food  which  stick  be- 
tween the  teeth,  and  then  soften  and  ferment  in  the  heat  and  moisture 
of  the  mouth  and  become  acrid  and  injure  the  enamel.  The  enamel 
is  at  first  slightly  discolored  at  one  point,  then  it  gets  soft,  and  event- 
ually a  little  hole  forms  in  it,  which  goes  on  enlarging  and  increasing 
until  the  deeper  structures  are  involved  and  the  pulp  is  exposed. 
Very  often  the  secretions  of  the  mouth  mixed  with  the  food  dry  on 
the  teeth  and  between  them,  and  form  the  so-called  tartar,  which  is  a 
powerful  agent  in  the  production  of  decay. 

The  only  way  to  guard  against  these  dangers  is  to  keep  the  teeth 
perfectly  clean.  They  should  never  on  any  account  be  brushed  less 
than  twice  a  day.  Brushing  the  teeth  in  the  morning,  and  in  the 
morning  only,  is  not  enough.  When  possible,  they  should  be  brushed 
after  every  meal,  especially  when  animal  food  has  been  taken.  The 
avocations  of  many  people,  which  take  them  from  their  homes,  may 
not  allow  them  to  brush  their  teeth  after  every  meal,  but  they  can  at 
all  events  thoroughly  wash  out  the  mouth  with  cold  water,  and  thus 
remove  most  of  the  food  which  would  otherwise  adhere. 


THE    TOILET.  3H 

The  idea  that  frequently  brushing  the  teeth  tends  to  lacerate  the 
gums  and  separate  them  from  the  roots  is  erroneous.  The  oftener 
they  are  brushed  the  better,  provided  always  that  a  moderately  soft 
brush  be  used.  The  teeth  should,  of  course,  be  cleaned  inside  and 
out ;  many  people  seem  to  think  that  as  long  as  they  clean  those  teeth 
which  are  seen  they  have  done  all  that  is  necessary. 

The  use  of  simple  tooth-powder  is  to  be  commended.  When 
there  is  a  tendency  to  decay,  tincture  of  myrrh  often  proves  of  much 
value. 

The  habit  of  taking  very  hot  substances  into  the  mouth  should  be 
avoided,  as  the  heat  may  crack  the  enamel.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
practice  of  sucking  ice  and  subjecting  them  to  the  other  extreme  of 
temperature  is  equally  to  be  deprecated.  No  one  who  has  the  slightest 
respect  for  his  teeth  would  use  them  as  nut-crackers.  Smoking,  but 
more  especially  chewing,  tobacco  is  bad  for  the  teeth. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  preservation  of  the  teeth  is  in  a 
great  measure  dependent  on  the  condition  of  the  health,  and  this 
should  accordingly  be  maintained  in  the  highest  possible  state  of 
integrity  by  the  use  of  plain,  nourishing  food,  cold  bathing  or  spong- 
ing, and  early  or  regular  hours. 

A  FINE  comb  loosens  the  dead  skin  of  the  scalp,  just  as  friction 
rubs  off  the  scarf-skin  of  the  body. 

In  washing  hair-brushes  do  not  use  soap  or  hot  water.  Dissolve 
a  teaspoonful  of  saleratus  in  tepid  water,  and  dip  the  brush  up  and 
down  in  it  till  it  is  white  and  clean.  Place  it  in  the  warm  air  to  dry 
with  the  bristles  down,  and  it  will  be  as  firm  as  a  new  brush.  Harts- 
horn in  tepid  water  is  quite  as  efficacious,  but  not  as  convenient.  A 
handful  of  dry  meal  rubbed  on  brushes  is  also  excellent  for  cleaning 
them.  It  removes  all  grease  and  dust,  and  can  be  shaken  out  of  the 
bristles  easily. 

Lemon-juice  and  glycerine  will  cleanse  and  soften  the  hands. 

To  Remove  Pimples. — Sulphur  water,  i  oz. ;  acetated  liquor  of 
ammonia,  ^  oz. ;  liquor  of  potassa,  i  gr. ;  white  wine  vinegar,  2  ozs. ; 
distilled  water,  2  ozs.     Apply  twice  a  day. 


312  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Care  of  the  Hands. — A  naturally  fine  hand  is  made  more  beauti- 
ful by  care,  and  a  hand  not  so  greatly  favored  is  much  improved, 
without  doubt,  by  extra  attention.  A  visit  to  the  manicure  results 
in  a  treatment  merely  preparatory.  The  hands  are  placed  for  about 
ten  minutes  in  a  lukewarm  solution.  The  flesh  about  the  nails  is 
thus  softened,  and  is  then  skilfully  raised  from  the  nail  and  cut  close 
with  a  pair  of  circular  flesh-cutters.  The  nails  are.  then  covered  with 
a  deep  rose-tinted  pomade,  which,  though  washed  gently  off  in  a 
minute  or  two,  leaves  its  blush  behind.  This  is  succeeded  by  a 
grayish  powder,  which,  in  turn,  is  rubbed  off  lightly  and  swiftly  by 
a  buffer  or  wash  leather  pad,  giving  a  fine  polish  to  the  nail.  Lastly, 
the  nail  tips  are  filed  into  the  pointed  or  round  shape,  according  to 
individual  fancy.  The  principal  errors  to  be  avoided,  says  the  mani- 
cure, in  the  care  of  the  nails  is  the  use  of  the  knife  or  scissors  in 
either  cleaning  or  cutting.  The  nails  should  never  be  cut,  but  always 
filed,  and  never  cleaned  except  with  something  hard  and  smooth, 
like  ivory,  which  cannot  erase  the  protective  lining  of  the  nail.  Of 
course,  the  nails  should  not  be  bitten — scarcely  any  one  addicted  to 
this  nervous  and  vulgar  habit  needs  to  be  told  this.  They  should 
also  be  guarded  against  bruises,  which  are  the  cause  of  the  unsightly 
white  spots ;  neither  should  the  flesh  about  the  nails  be  cut  by  one's 
self,  as  very  sore  fingers  may  be  caused  by  carelessness  in  this  par- 
ticular. The  nails  in  prime  condition  should  be  curved  and  not  flat; 
long  and  narrow,  with  the  delicate  white  crescent  outline  at  the  base, 
rosy  in  hue  and  glistening  like  a  mirror.  Here  then  is  the  standard 
which  the  regular  patrons  of  the  manicure  uphold,  and  more  or  less 
of  the  points  constituting  which  may  be  achieved  by  each  individual 
herself  at  the  expense  of  some  care  and  not  a  little  time. 

If  Garters  are  worn,  it  is  important  to  know  how  to  apply  them 
with  the  least  risk  of  harm.  At  the  bend  of  the  knee  the  super- 
ficial veins  of  the  leg  unite,  and  go  deeply  into  the  under  part  of  the 
thigh,  beneath  the  ham-string  tendons.  Thus  a  ligature  below  the 
knee  obstructs  all  the  superficial  veins ;  but,  if  the  constriction  is 
above,  the  ham-string  tendons  keep  the  pressure  off  the  veins  which 


THE   TOILET, 


313 


return  the  blood  from  the  legs.  Unfortunately,  most  people,  in 
ignorance  of  the  above  facts,  apply  the  garter  below  the  knee. 

To  CLEAR  the  complexion,  take  a  teaspoonful  of  charcoal  well 
mixed  in  water  or  honey  for  three  nights,  then  use  a  simple  purga- 
tive to  remove  it  from  the  system.  It  acts  like  calomel,  with  no 
bad  effects,  purifying  the  blood  more  effectually  than  anything  else. 
But  some  simple  aperient  must  not  be  omitted,  or  the  charcoal  will 
remain  in  the  system,  a  mass  of  festering  poison,  with  all  the  impuri- 
ties it  absorbs.  After  this  course  of  purification  tonics  may  be 
used. 

People  inclined  to  embonpoint  will  be  glad  to  know  that  a  strong 
decoction  of  sassafras  drank  frequently  will  reduce  the  flesh  as  rapidly 
as  any  remedy  known.  Take  it  either  iced  or  hot,  as  fancied,  with  a 
little  sugar  if  preferred.  A  strong  infusion  is  made  at  the  rate  of 
an  ounce  of  sassafras  to  a  quart  of  water.  Boil  it  half  an  hour  very 
slowly,  and  let  it  stand  till  cold,  heating  again  if  desired,  and  keeping 
it  from  the  air. 

It  is  said  that  the  vi^ater  in  which  potatoes  have  been  boiled  with 
the  skins  on  forms  a  speedy  and  harmless  dye  for  the  hair  and  eye- 
brows. The  parings  of  potatoes  before  cooking  may  be  boiled  by 
themselves  and  the  water  strained  off  for  use.  Apply  it  with  a  fine 
comb  dipped  in  the  water  drawn  through  the  hair,  wetting  it  at  each 
stroke,  till  the  head  is  thoroughly  soaked.  If  the  result  is  not  satis- 
factory the  first  time,  repeat  the  wetting  with  a  sponge,  taking  care  not 
to  discolor  the  skin  of  the  brow  and  neck. 


COMP/NY  IN  THE  HOME. 

"  Blest  be  that  spot,  where  cheerful  guests  retire, 
To  pause  from  toil,  and  trim  their  evening  fire; 
Blest  that  abode,  where  want  and  pain  repair, 
And  every  stranger  finds  a  ready  chair." 

?HE  choice  of  friends  and  acquaintances  is  one  of  the 
most  important  processes  of  the  human  will.  I  call  it 
a  process  rather  than  an  act  because  it  is  a  gradual 
and  often  an  unconscious  growth  of  feeling.  Acquaint- 
ance ripens  into  friendship  when  there  is  that  harmony 
of  feeling  and  tastes  in  which  friendship  has  its  basis.  But  some 
persons  are  very  well  as  acquaintances  who  are  very  undesirable  as 
friends.  Care,  but  not  suspicion,  should  guide  us  in  our  friendships. 
But  acquaintanceship  easily  passes  into  that  familiarity  which  counts 
for  friendship.  Yet  in  inward  truth  people  are  often  very  intimate 
with  one  another  and  speak  of  and  to  each  other  as  friends,  old  friends, 
intimate  friends,  and  dear  friends,  who  are  not  friends  at  all,  because 
the  unanimity  which  true  friendship  requires  is  wanting.  Such 
friendships  are  soon  broken  by  a  hasty  word  or  an  inconsiderate 
act,  and  this  shows  their  hollowness,  for  if  the  friendship  be  real, 
accidents  and  little  misunderstandings  could  not  snap  it. 

There  are  two  proverbs  which  pass  current  in  the  world,  but  which 
will  scarcely  bear  a  strict  examination.  One  is,  that  ".No  man  is  a 
hero  to  his  valet  de  chambre;"  the  other  is,  that  "Familiarity  breeds 
contempt."  But  if  a  man  be  really  a  hero  he  will  be  one  in  his  night- 
cap as  well  as  in  his  wig.  We  may  laugh  at  another  person  without 
despising  him  or  feeling  any  contempt  for  him.  When  the  old- 
fashioned  camphine  lamps  first  came  into  fashion,  husband  and  wife 
(314) 


COMPANV    IN    THE    HOME.  315 

would  sometimes  look  into  each  other's  face  and  each  exclaim  to  the 
other :  "  Why,  my  dear,  your  face  is  all  covered  with  black  soot," 
and  the  answer  would  be:  "  Why,  so  is  yours!"  Each  would  have 
a  ridiculous  appearance  to  the  other,  but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  say 
that  at  such  a  comical  situation  they  loved  each  other  less,  or  had 
less  respect  for  one  another.  So  the  valet  who  swaddles  up  his  old 
master's  feet  and  head  when  he  has  a  bad  influenza,  and  administers 
his  hot  gruel  and  spirits  of  nitre,  does  not  lose  his  respect  for  him 
just  because  in  that  predicament  he  presents  a  woebegone  and  un- 
heroic  aspect.  He  is  still  the  dear,  kind  master  that  he  was  when  he 
set  forth  equipped  into  the  battle  of  life,  and  his  valet  followed  him 
with  sword  and  baggage.  The  late  Charles  Kingsley  used  to  say 
that  "  Don  Quixote  "  was  the  most  pathetic  book  he  ever  read.  He 
must  have  meant  that  the  true  heroism  and  nobleness  of  the  old  book- 
worm, crazed  with  stories  of  knight-errantry,  had  a  pathos  in  them 
which  more  than  counterbalanced  his  ridiculous  appearance  and  mis- 
takes. To  Sancho  Panza,  at  any  rate,  he  seemed  the  greatest  hero 
in  the  world,  and  to  be  his  body-servant  and  follow  him  on  a  donkey 
through  all  his  exploits  seemed  a  position  both  of  dignity  and  glory. 
If  the  proverb  that  "  No  man  is  a  hero  to  his  valet "  were  wholly 
true — for,  of  course,  there  are  times  when  a  hero  is  not  heroic,  as 
when  he  is  battling  with  mosquitoes  instead  of  the  enemy — then  we 
should  be  brought  to  the  melancholy  conclusion  that  heroism  is  not 
in  the  man,  but  in  the  accidents  of  the  man,  and  that  no  character  is 
so  noble  as  to  bear  knowing  with  its  robes  of  office  taken  off  This 
is  happily  the  very  contrary  of  the  truth. 

So  with  that  other  proverb,  "  Familiarity  breeds  contempt,"  it  is 
only  true  when  the  person  one  becomes  familiar  with  is  really  con- 
temptible, and  when  intimate  knowledge  reveals  the  worthlessness  of 
his  character.  But  intimate  knowledge  does  not  always  make  this 
revelation,  for  constant  familiarity  and  intimacy  with  others  too  often 
blind  us  to  their  faults  instead  of  opening  our  eyes  to  them.  It  is 
with  men  and  women  of  the  baser  sort  as  Pope  has  said  of  vice : 


3i6  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

"  Vice  is  a  monster  of  so  frightful  mien 
As  to  lie  hated  needs  but  to  be  seen; 
But  seen  too  oft,  familiar  with  its  face. 
We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace." 

Familiarity  certainly  does  not  breed  contempt  for  the  good.  It  may 
show  us  their  weak  points  and  reveal  our  weak  points  to  them ;  but 
those  weaknesses  rather  endear  friends  to  each  other  than  create  con- 
tempt on  either  side.  "  With  all  thy  faults  I  love  thee  still,"  is  a  trite 
quotation,  but  it  truly  describes  what  intimacy  does  when  there  is 
real  friendship. 

It  is  not  desirable,  however,  to  begin  an  intimacy  with  persons  of 
weaker  character  than  ourselves.  They  will  oftener  pull  us  down  to 
their  level  than  we  succeed  in  raising  them  to  ours.  Some  men  and 
women  seem  to  delight  in  a  feeling  of  calm  superiority  to  their  friends, 
and  they  choose  persons  of  less  virtue  or  intelligence  than  themselves 
in  order  to  enjoy  the  tranquil  egotism  of  looking  down  on  them. 
The  conceited  student  says  to  himself,  "  Dr.  Johnson  had  his  Bos- 
well  to  take  notes  of  admiration  of  him  and  ask  his  judgment  and 
advice  upon  all  occasions ;  therefore  all  superior  minds  should  have 
an  inferior  for  their  bosom  friend.  I  am  a  superior  mind,  and  poor, 
dear  So-and-so  is  very  simple  and  thinks  a  deal  of  me.  I  will  be 
Johnson  and  he  shall  be  my  Boswell."  But  the  patronized,  snubbed 
and  paraded  follower,  who  in  his  simple  heart  loves  his  grand  friend 
and  feels  honored  by  his  friendship,  is  sometimes  a  better  if  not  a 
wiser  man  than  his  conceited,  condescending  friend. 

What  a  strange  volume  of  reminiscences  could  every  man  and 
woman  compose  in  their  own  silent  hours  of  reflection  and  introspec- 
tion, if  they  recalled  all  the  friendships  they  had  formed  through  life 
and  analyzed  the  causes  that  had  led  to  them !  They  would  think 
of  one,  perhaps,  who  had  really  not  much  in  common  with  them  in 
thoughts  and  aspirations,  but  with  whom  familiarity  had  bred  friend- 
ship, not  contempt.  They  were  school-girls  or  school-boys  together, 
and  some  accident,  perhaps  a  quarrel  over  lessons  or  play,  made 
them  warm  friends  for  life.     They  met,  perhaps,  on  a  steamboat  or  a 


^  COMPANY    IN    THE    HOME.  317 

Street  car,  and  some  trifling  occurrence  made  them  first  bowing  ac- 
quaintances, then  visitors  at  each  other's  homes,  then  hand-shaking 
and  hearty  friends.  Sometimes  taking  another  person's  hat  or  um- 
brella by  mistake — though  umbrellas,  as  a  rule,  arc  not  taken  by 
mistake — led  to  apologies  and  explanations,  and  these  to  acquaint- 
anceship, and  that  to  intimacy. 

How  hard  it  is  to  avoid  being  either  friends  or  foes  to  one  who 
lives  next  door  to  us,  or  has  rooms  in  the  same  house,  or  lives 
directly  opposite,  and  whom  we  find  ourselves  unconsciously  sur- 
veying through  our  window  when  he  or  she  is  contemplating  us  in 
the  same  way  and  time !  How  hard  it  is  to  escape  having  some  feel- 
ing toward  every  one  we  are  brought  in  contact  with,  the  butcher, 
baker  or  grocer  who  supplies  our  physical  needs,  the  partner  with 
whom  we  dance  at  a  ball,  the  person  who  lends  us  a  hymn-book 
at  church,  or  shows  us  the  place  we  are  looking  for!  The  footman  ■ 
becomes  familiar  by  bringing  us  letters  frequently,  and  the  car-driver 
by  taking  up  our  fare  so  often.  A  French  exile  once  wrote  to  the 
third  Napoleon  asking  pardon  and  permission  to  return  to  France, 
on  the  ground  that  he  had  been  the  first  to  lay  his  hand  upon  him 
and  arrest  him  when  he  was  made  prisoner  and  shut  up  in  the  fortress 
of  Ham.  The  emperor  could  not  resist  the  plea  of  such  familiarity 
as  this,  and  at  once  made  out  his  pardon,  which  he  sent  him  with  an 
autograph  letter.  Every  day  that  dawns  upon  us  may  bring  us  a 
new  acquaintance  or  end  an  old  friendship.  We  jostle  each  other 
and  tread  upon  each  other's  feet  in  the  hurly-burly  of  life.  All  our 
friends  were  once  strangers  to  us,  and  any  stranger  may  become  our 
friend. 

The  solitary  are  "  set  in  families;"  households  are  composed  of 
individuals,  and  communities  of  households.  "  Man  is  a  gregarious 
animal,"  said  the  old  logician,  and  abhors  isolation  as  much  as  sheep 
do.  The  household  is  a  shecpfold,  and  in  the  fields  of  life  the  hu- 
man sheep  must  graze  together  and  hold  the  pasturage  in  common. 
But  scabby  sheep  are  avoided  by  the  healthy  ones,  and  morally  un- 
wholesome persons  should   be  avoided  by  families  and  individuals 


% 


3i8  THE  hearthstone;    or,  life  at  home. 

from  an  instinct  of  self-preservation  and  for  the  protection  of  the 
young.  "Avoid  bad  company,"  is  a  precept  which  needs  to  be  fol- 
lowed as  much  inside  as  outside  of  the  home.  Be  courteous,  there- 
fore, to  every  one  with  whom  you  have  to  do,  but  do  not  be  weak 
enough  to  allow  any  one  to  thrust  their  company  upon  you  against 
your  own  inclinations. 

As  soon  as  you  settle  in  a  neighborhood,  the  gossip  of  the  place 
is  sure  to  pounce  upon  you,  and  will  gain  an  entrance  into  your 
house  by  strategy  in  order  to  add  to  her  stock  in  trade  of  tittle-tattle. 
That  mischief-making  person  must  be  kept  out  if  you  would  live  in 
peace  with  your  neighbors.  You  must  let  her  severely  alone,  and 
make  her  understand,  once  for  all,  that  she  must  let  you  and  yours 
alone.  "  But  how  can  I  do  it?"  you  ask.  "She  visits  everywhere; 
she  will  keep  on  calling ;  how  can  I  shut  my  door  in  her  face  ?  " 
Hundreds  of  "home  rulers,"  the  wives  and  mothers  whose  voice  is 
absolute  as  to  who  shall  be  welcome  guests  and  who  shall  be  ex- 
cluded, and  against  whose  wishes  neither  husband  nor  son  would 
bring  home  a  friend,  deceive  themselves  when  they  ask  this  question.' 
The  fact  is  that  the  difficulty  is  not  so  much  in  keeping  the  tale- 
bearer out  as  in  the  unacknowledged  truth  that  they  rather  like  her 
to  "  drop  in,"  though  they  pretend  the  contrary,  and  will  not  own  it 
even  to  themselves.  Curiosity  about  other  people  is  in  their  minds 
as  well  as  on  her  tongue.  They  are  "  afraid  of  hurting  her  feel- 
ings," when  the  fact  is  she  has  no  feelings  worth  speaking  about. 

It  has  been  said  by  more  than  one  philosopher  who  has  made 
human  nature  his  study  that,  however  much  they  may  conceal  the 
truth  from  themselves  and  others,  people  generally  are  pleased  to 
hear  of  the  misfortunes  of  their  neighbors.  This  does  not  arise  from 
malevolence  or  ill-nature,  but  the  domestic  or  business  mishaps  of 
others  give  them  something  to  talk  about,  reflect  upon,  turn  over  and 
over  in  their  minds  with  all  the  causes  and  effects  connected  with  it. 
"  I  always  said  so;  "  "Just  as  I  predicted;"  "  It  is  the  old  story  of 
pride  going  before  destruction,"  etc.,  etc. — these  expressions  are  a 
relief  to  the  speaker's  feelings,  and  show  that  the  bad  news  is  quite 


COMPANV    IN    THE    HOME. 


319 


exciting  and  breaks  the  humdrum  monotony  of  every-day  thought 
and  Hfe. 

As  people  in  large  cities  take  up  the  newspaper  the  first  thing  in 
the  morning  to  read  of  wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  murders,  burglaries, 
failures  in  business,  railway  accidents,  shipwrecks,  fires,  scandals  in 
high  life,  broken  heads  and  drunkenness  in  low  life,  balls,  plays,  new 
fashions,  and  what  the  comet  has  been  doing  with  its  tail  since  it  was 
last  visible,  so  in  the  smaller  village  circles  neighbors  run  into  each 
other's  cottages   to  tell  the  wondrous  news  of  an  assault  committed 
by  Huggins  on  Muggins,  a  proposal  made  by  the  bashful  dry-goods 
young  man  for  the  hand  of  Miss  Sophronia   Mineral,   the   school- 
teacher, or  the  awful  fact  that  a  husband  who  kept  late  hours  had 
been  locked  out  by  his  judicious  spouse,  and  had  been  found  with 
his  nose  frost-bitten  and  no  hat  on  his  head  sleeping  on  a  tombstone 
in  the  village  churchyard.     All   these  tragic  or  melodramatic  inci- 
dents pass  from  tongue  to  tongue,  and  such   remarks  as,  "  Who'd 
have  thought  it!"  "Bless  me,  you  make  my  blood  run  cold  !  "  "Just 
as  I  expected ;  so  it  has  come  at  last !  "  "I  always  said  so  ! "  and  the 
like,  prove  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  new^s  is  a  nervine,  a  tonic,  an 
eye-opener,  an  ear-tickler,  and  a  tongue-loosener  to  everybody  in  the 
place,  except  the  unfortunate  subjeet  of  their  conversation.    The  tell- 
tale who   carries  the  story  from  house  to  house,  and  touches  it  up 
with  the  paint-brush  of  her  imagination  as  she  goes  along,  is  a  wel- 
come guest  wherever  she  goes.     People  may  not  like  her  for  her- 
self, but  they  make  much  of  her  for  the  news  she  brings.     It  is  no 
use  reasoning  with  them,  for  they  always  have  the  excuse  at  hand 
that  they  are  not  free  agents  in  the  matter  and  cannot  refuse  to  listen 
to  her  stories.    The  only  cure  for  these  itching  ears  is  in  being  them- 
selves made  victims  of  the  gossip's  tongue,  instead  of  lofty  and  com- 
miserating critics  ot  other  people  and   their  affairs.     They  learn  to 
shut  their  door  against  scandal  only  when  it  has  assailed  the  happi- 
ness of  their  own  fireside.     Then  they  begin  to  see  that  talebearers 
and  scandal-mongers  are   not  good   company  for  a  peaceful,  bright 
and  contented  home. 


320  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

But  these  busybodies  and  talebearers,  concerning  whom  every  one 
who  receives  their  visits  ought  to  bear  in  mind  that  they  will  carry 
away  fresh  material  for  gossip  from  what  they  see  and  hear  during 
their  visit,  are  not  the  only  unprofitable  and  untimely  visitors  who 
disturb  the  order  and  harmony  of  home.  Good-natured  and  harm- 
less persons  may  sometimes  be  great  bores  to  others  without  know- 
ing it.  That  which  distinguishes  one's  own  home  from  hotel  and 
boarding-house  life  is  its  privacy,  and  freedom  from  the  restraint 
which  the  presence  of  those  who  are  not  members  of  the  family  neces- 
sitates. Before  guests,  who  are  as  familiar  with  our  next-door  neigh- 
bors as  with  ourselves,  we  have  to  be  on  our  guard  against  an 
incautious  word,  which  repeated  elsewhere  might  do  mischief,  how- 
ever innocently  meant.  Many  amiable  but  talkative  persons  never 
think  of  this.  They  repeat  at  one  house  what  they  have  heard  at 
another  about  the  private  affairs  of  individuals  and  families. 

How  often  do  we  wonder  at  the  distant  greeting  and  changed 
manner  of  a  neighbor,  and  worry  our  minds  in  asking  ourselves  what 
possible  offense  we  can  have  given  !  Sometimes  friends  who  were 
once  intimate  grow  colder  and  colder  to  each  other,  until  at  last  they 
pass  each  other  in  the  street  without  recognition.  One  of  the  two 
parties  may  remain  in  ignorance  all  the  time  as  to  how  the  estrange- 
ment began.  All  that  he  or  she  knows  is  that  their  greeting  did 
not  meet  with  the  same  warm-hearted  response  as  formerly;  that  the 
friend  only  bowed  instead  of  stopping  to  shake  hands  as  heretofore, 
and  that  by  degrees  the  recognition  became  more  and  more  distant 
until  it  ceased  altogether.  Little  matters  are  often  far  more  difficult 
to  explain  and  set  right  than  great  ones.  It  is  neither  easy  nor  pleas- 
ant to  ask  for  an  explanation  of  another  person's  manner.  One  is 
never  quite  sure  at  first  that  the  coldness  may  not  have  been  acci- 
dental, or  that  we  imagined  another's  manner  changed  to  us  when  it 
really  was  not  so.  It  makes  a  man  or  woman  look  foolish  to  ask 
for  an  explanation  of  an  imaginary  slight.  The  mere  question  places 
us  at  a  disadvantage,  and  if  the  other  party  is  conceited  we  run  the 
risk  of  gratifying  their  self-respect  at  the  expense  of  our  own.     If 


COMPANY    IN   THE    HOME.  32  I 

they  are  sly  as  well  as  conceited,  they  may  now  make  a  case  against 
us,  which  may  be  just  what  they  want  to  do.  They  may  say  of  us 
to  others  that  really  we  are  so  ridiculously  sensitive  that  if  they  don't 
go  into  ecstasies  on  meeting  us  we  fancy  they  want  to  cut  our  ac- 
quaintance. This  makes  us  feel  more  annoyed  than  beforis,  and  then, 
if  they  are  malevolent  and  like  to  wound  our  feelings,  as  well  as 
superior  to  us  in  cunning,  they  may  not  only  say  to  others  that  wc 
are  always  fancying  ourselves  slighted,  but  they  may  say  to  us,  point 
blank,  when  we  ask  why  they  are  not  as  cordial  as  formerly:  "  Really, 
indeed,  upon  my  word,  you  surprise  me  by  the  question.  Upon  my 
word,  deeply,  of  course,  as  I  esteem  you  and  all  that,  and  admire 
your  family  and  all  that,  I  have  something  else  to  do  than  to  be 
always  thinking  about  you.  I  cannot  always  have  the  exact  warmth 
that  you  require.  I  am  so  extremely  sorry  that  my  manner  should 
have  made  you  unhappy.  Positively,  just  tell  me  what  degree  of 
the  thermometer  of  greeting  you  wish  me  to  keep  up,"  and  so  on, 
until  we  go  home  ready  to  burst  with  humiliation  and  annoyance, 
which  is  just  what  our  cunning  acquaintance  desired.  We  have  put 
ourselves  in  their  power  by  asking  the  reason  of  a  slight  which  was, 
no  doubt,  both  intentional  and  malicious,  but  which  it  is  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world  for  them  to  pretend  unconsciousness  about.  Now, 
of  course,  we  are  compelled  to  vindicate  our  own  independence  and 
self-respect  by  being  cold  to  them,  but  this  only  puts  us  still  further 
in  the  wrong  if  they  are  craftier  than  we  are.  They  can  make  us 
ridiculous  to  the  neighborhood  by  pretending  that  we  are  so  sensi- 
tive that  we  must  be  treated  with  the  greatest  care  and  punctilio  for 
fear  we  should  take  offense.  Many  kind-hearted,  unselfish  persons 
are  put  upon  a  rack  of  social  torture  by  just  such  accidents  as  these. 
And  how  did  it  begin  ?  Why,  the  chances  are  that  at  our  own  fire- 
side we  unguardedly  said  something  about  the  other  party's  mind 
or  manners,  forgetting  that  Miss  Tattle  or  Mr.  Teller,  who  happened 
to  be  calling  upon  us  at  the  time,  would  be  sure  to  repeat  it  until 
it  reached  the  ears  of  the  person  spoken  of,  even  if  it  were  not  carried 

direct. 

21 


322  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

In  civilized  places,  where  men  don't  carry  loaded  revolvers  at 
noonday  and  shoot  each  other  for  an  idle  word,  a  downright,  hearty- 
quarrel  is  better  than  this  underground  misunderstanding.  A  true 
lady  or  gentleman  is  always  ready  to  apologize  when  they  are  in  the 
wrong,  and, to  take  back  an  offensive  speech  inadvertently  made. 
Thackeray  went  the  right  way  to  work  on  his  visit  to  this  country 
when  he  was  told  that  a  Dr.  Griswold,  a  writer,  had  spoken  of  him 
as  a  snob.  Meeting  him  at  dinner  and  being  introduced  to  him  he 
extended  his  hand  frankly,  and  said :  "  I  understand,  Dr.  Griswold, 
that  you  have  called  me  a  snob.  Now,  sir," — drawing  himself  up  to 
his  full  height,  which  was  over  six  feet — "  look  at  me  and  tell  me, 
do  I  look  like  a  snob  ?  "  There  is  nothing  like  having  it  out  with  an 
adversary  before  the  wound  has  time  to  mortify  or  the  injury — real 
or  supposed — to  fester  or  grow  inwards. 

A  harmless  visitor  to  our  home  may  do  a  deal  of  harm  to  us  and 
ours,  as  well  as  to  others  whom  we  think  well  of  and  are  glad  to 
know.  It  is  not  that  Miss  Tattle  and  Mr.  Teller  really  wished  to 
make  mischief  If  they  did  they  should  be  labelled  talebearer  and 
mischief-maker  and  kept  out  of  our  house  at  any  cost — even  to  the 
point  of  telling  them  that  their  visits  are  not  desired — but  they  do  it 
without  malice,  just  for  want  of  something  better  to  talk  about,  and 
because  they  see  it  gratifies  the  natural  curiosity  of  the  idle. 

"The  idle!"  That  is  just  the  class  who  love  scandal,  for  those 
who  have  their  hands  full  of  work  have  no  time  to  be  busy  with 
other  people's  affairs.  Industry,  however  un remunerative,  is  never 
unproductive  of  good  if  it  only  keeps  us  out  of  mischief  And  what 
social  mischief  can  at  all  compare,  in  the  unhappiness  it  causes,  with 
the  talebearing  of  small  communities  ! 

This  industry  is  the  only  and  the  effectiv^e  safeguard  against  hav- 
ing the  privacy  of  your  home  invaded  by  callers  who,  having  nothing 
to  do  themselves,  make  frequent  visits  to  all  their  neighbors,  whom 
they  are  likely  to  find  at  leisure,  to  talk  and  listen  to  them. 

Professional  persons  have  their  reception  hours ;  private  families 
should  have  them  also.     Let  the  gossip  and  the  mere  vacant  idler 


COMPANY    IN    THE    HOME.  323 

understand  that  life  is  to  you  more  valuable  than  that  you  should 
fritter  away  its  morning  and  evening  hours.  If  they  think  that  their 
vital  machinery  is  going  to  last  forever,  let  them  know  that  you  are 
alive  to  the  truth  that  you  are  mortal,  and  must  do  with  regularity 
and  industry  the  work  you  find  to  do.  How  many  weak-minded 
housewives  are  always  saying,  "  I  was  just  going  to  do  this  or  that 
important  piece  of  work,  when  Mrs.  Fuss  or  Miss  Feathers  came  in 
and  stayed  so  long  chatting  that  I  had  to  give  it  up  ! "  Better  sweep 
good  Mrs.  Fuss  away  with  your  broom  and  blow  the  airy  Miss 
Feathers  up  the  chimney  than"*allow  them  to  prevent  you  doing  your 
day's  proper  work.  Better  be  "  talked  to  death,"  if  talk  would  only 
be  kind  enough  to  make  an  end  of  the  listener  when  it  will  not  make 
an  end  of  itself,  than  be  talked  out  of  one's  works  and  ways.  Don't 
hurt  anybody  else's  feelings  if  you  can  help  it,  but  be  firm  and  screw 
your  courage  to  the  sticking  point  of  saying :  "  You  will  really  have 
to  excuse  me,  but  this  is  my  hour  for  work,  and  I  must  postpone  the 
pleasure  of  a  chat  until  I  am  off  diity!'  Be  off  duty,  my  sisters,  as 
little  as  you  can.  Make  your  life  as  full  of  duties  as  you  can. 
Utilize  all  the  hours  you  can,  so  will  you  neither  give  nor  t£ikc 
offense ;  you  will  compel  the  respect  of  your  neighbors  and  shut  the 
gossip's  mouth.  Your  sleep  will  be  healthy  and  sound,  undisturbed 
by.  the  self-accusing  thoughts  of  the  idler  and  the  horrid  nightmares 
of  the  social  scandal-monger. 

When  once  it  becomes  known  to  your  neighbors  that  you  reg;:rd 
life  as  intended  for  something  more  than  a  gossips'  paradise,  and  tha;; 
you  devote  the  morning  and  evening  hours  to  duties  and  culture, 
and  the  afternoons  to  out-door  exercise,  the  regular  critics  of  every- 
body but  themselves  will,  after  some  fierce  assaults  upon  your  privac)-, 
let  you  severely  alone.  Of  course,  they  will  avenge  their  slighted 
conversation  by  pitying  comments  on  you  to  each  other.  They  will 
say  you  have  no  spirit  in  you  and  are  content  to  let  the  world  take 
its  own  course,  so  long  as  you  can  keep  your  own  home  tidy  and 
manage  your  own  affairs  smoothl}-.  They  will  call  you  a  drudge. 
and  say  you  have   no  soul.     But  the  very  best  people  in  this  world 


324  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

are  those  who  keep  their  souls  to  themselves  and  work  as  regularly 
as  if  they  hadn't  any.  It  is  really  a  great  compliment  to  be  pro- 
nounced wanting  in  public  interest  and  spirit  by  the  village  gossips. 
All  you  care  for  is  to  be  let  alone  by  them,  and  the  only  way  to 
accomplish  this  happy  result  is  to  keep  them  at  a  respectful  distance 
with  the  pins  and  needles,  the  bodkins  and  darning-needles,  and  the 
domestic  duties  that  are  a  woman's  best  protection,  as  they  are  her 
truest  happiness. 

But  having  established  order  in  your  home  by  keeping  yourself 
and  your  children  free  from  intrusion  during  hours  of  duty  and  study, 
let  there  be  times  when  you  receive  and  return  visits.  Be  glad  to 
see  those  who  are  glad  to  see  you.  Be  chatty  and  agreeable,  but 
let  your  tongue  be  eloquent  in  speaking  good  of  others  and  silent 
as  to  their  faults.  Above  ajl,  never  meddle  with  the  private  affairs 
of  others  in  your  conversation,  unless  you  are  prepared  that  they 
should  make  free  with  yours.  Let  your  talk  be  such  as  leaves  a 
pleasant,  not  a  sour,  taste  in  the  mouth,  and  cultivate  the  company 
of  those  who  leave  behind  them  pleasant  and  kindly  impressions. 
Not  only  is  the  human  voice  the  most  tremendous  of  all  social  in- 
fluences in  the  world,  so  that  the  spoken  word  really  never  dies,  but 
spreads  in  ever-widening  circles  of  effect,  but  the  influences  of  con- 
versation for  good  or  ill  upon  the  minds  of  a  whole  family,  children 
or  full  grown,  is  most  important  in  the  conduct  and  happiness  of  life. 
The  conversation  must  depend  upon  the  company.  It  is  useless  to 
cast  pearls  before  swine,  or  talk  of  literature  and  art,  the  beauties  of 
scenery  or  the  delights  of  reading  to  those  who  have  no  taste  for 
them.  Choose  for  your  friends  those  in  whose  presence  you  feel 
cheered  and  improved,  not  those  with  whom  every  interchange  of 
sentences  is  a  labor  and  a  weariness.  Be  mistress  of  your  own  house, 
and  let  no  one  use  your  home  as  they  would  a  tavern  or  a  club  ; 
but  be  hospitable  to  the  right  sort  of  people,  who  know  that  there 
is  a  time  to  call  and  a  time  to  stay  away,  a  time  for  condolence  or 
congratulation,  and  a  time  for  silence  and  solitude.  Sometimes  all 
company  is  oppressive ;  for  not  only  does  the  heart  know  its  own  sor- 


COMPANY    IN   THE    HOME.  325 

rows  but  its  own  joys,  and  one's  own  kith  and  kin,  still  more  a  stranger, 
cannot  share  our  inmost  feelings. 

When  the  work  of  the  day  is  over  and  the  family  are  all  assembled 
together  for  a  pleasant  evening,  the  intrusion  of  a  bore  spoils  every- 
thing, but  the  pleasant  face  of  an  agreeable  friend,  full  of  information 
and  kindly  sentiment,  is  an  addition  to  the  diffused  happiness  of  the 
home  circle.  Perhaps  one  member  of  the  circle  is  more  skilled  in 
some  dual  game,  like  chess,  than  the  others,  and  it  is  a  great  pleasure 
when  the  friend  drops  in  who  is  fairly  a  match  for  the  chess-player. 
Or  one  member  of  the  family  is  wrapped  up  in  an  amateur's  enthu- 
siasm for  painting  or  music  or  some  other  art,  and  a  friend  from  the 
outside  comes  in  to  exchange  feelings,  criticisms  and  hopes  with  him 
or  her  about  the  mutual  study  and  pursuit.  Musical  evenings  are 
especially  delightful,  because  music  does  not  disturb  but  agreeably 
relieves  the  sameness  of  conversation  and  revives  it  by  a  rest  when 
it  begins  to  flag. 

The  old  proverb  is  a  very  true  one  and  should  never  be  forgotten, 
that  a  person  is  known  by  the  company  he  or  she  keeps.  So  of  a 
home,  it  is  the  highest  praise  to  say  that  one  is  sure  of  meeting 
pleasant  company  in  it,  and  it  is  a  signboard  bidding  us  beware 
and  not  seek  admission  when  a  household  becomes  known  as  a 
central  depot  of  unpleasant  rumors  and  a  factory  for  social  whisper- 
ings. 


HOME  MEMORIES, 


••  I  remember,  I  remember, 

The  house  where  I  was  born, 
The  little  window  where  the  sun 

Came  peeping  in  at  morn. 
He  never  came  a  wink  too  soon, 

Nor  brought  too  long  a  day ; 
But  now  I  often  wish  the  night 

Had  borne  my  l.>rL-alh  away!" 

SHE  sunrise  after  the  night  of  darkness  makes  everything 
on  land  and  sea  appear  wonderfully  bright  and  vivid, 
but  as  the  hours  steal  on  the  feelings  of  delight  and 
surprise  pass  away,  and  we  look  upon  the  scenes  around 
K^^^C'T"—  us  as  matters  of  course  without  being  strongly  affected 
by  them.  So  it  is  with  life.  The  earliest  scenes'  form  the  latest 
memories,  and  the  mind's  first  impressions  are  the  most  deep  and 
lasting.  There  are  some  people  who  read  the  beginning  and  the  end 
of  a  book,  but  skip  heedlessly  over  the  chapters  that  lie  between  them. 
So  is  it  often  with  the  book  of  life.  The  years  that  lie  between  our 
childhood  and  old  age  seem  commonplace  and  we  forget  a  good 
many  of  their  occurrences  and  experiences,  but  no  one  ever  forgets 
the  home  where  the  eyes  first  opened  on  the  novel  scene  of  life,  the 
iiuman  faces,  the  nursery,  the  earliest  objects  and  associations. 

Men  and  women  have  lived  to  a  hundred  years  of  age  and  more, 
and  when  we  come  to  talk  to  them  we  find  their  recollections  of 
v/hole  decades  and  epochs  of  their  lives  often  very  hazy  and  inac- 
curate. They  confuse  the  persons  and  events  that  thronged  the 
busy  stage  of  middle  life,  and  attribute  words  or  actions  to  one  per- 
son at  one  time  that  really  were  spoken  or  done  by  another  person 
at  another  time.  But,  as  we  push  their  memory  back,  the  nearer  they 
(326) 


HOME    MEMORIES. 


327 


get  to  the  fountain-hjad  the  clearer  their  recollections  become.  Ten 
thousand  times  ten  thousand  faces  may  have  passed  before  their 
vision,  and  in  the  dim  corridors  of  age  they  seem  only  like  phantoms 
in  a  dream,  but  the  clouds  break,  the  sun  of  memory  shines,  and  out 
of  the  past  and  turning  it  into  the  present  there  shines  upon  the  old 
man  or  woman's  vision  a  mother's  face,  blessed  among  women,  radiant 
with  tender  grace  beyond  all  others,  and  upon  whose  angel  aspect 
time  writes  no  wrinkles.  Beautifully  has  Cowper  expressed  this  feel- 
ing and  vivid  recollection  of  the  heart's  first  love  in  his  lines  upon 
his  mother's  picture  : 

"O  that  those  lips  had  language  !     Life  has  passed 
With  me  but  roughly  since  I  heard  thee  last. 
Those  lips  are  thine, — thy  own  sweet  smile  I  see, 
The  same  that  oft  in  childhood  solaced  me  ; 
Voice  only  fail^,  else  how  distinct  they  say, 
♦  Grieve  not,  my  child  ;  chase  all  thy  fears  away  ! ' 
The  raeek  intelligence  of  those  dear  eyes 
(Blest  be  the  art  that  can  immcrtali/.e, — 
The  art  that  baffles  time's  tyrannic  claim 
To  quench  it  !)  here  shines  on  me  still  the  same." 

It  needs  no  canvas  to  recall  to  us  a  mother's  face.  Dust  and 
decay  may  dim  and  spoil  a  picture,  but  a  dear  mother's  image  is  en- 
graven on  the  heart,  and  passes  from  it,  or  rather  with  it,  only  when  it 
dies.  As  the  eye  recalls  her  looks  of  love,  warning  and  consolation, 
so  does  the  ear  catch  the  sweet  accents  of  her  voice  wafted  on  the 
intervening  air  as  though  it  were  .still  speaking  to  us.  The  pictures 
and  figures  which  we  see  evervwhere  in  Roman  Catholic  countries 
of  the  Madonna  and  child  may  symboliz.e  to  us,  independently  of  their 
religious  associations,  the  relation  of  the  mother  to  the  child-man  or 
woman.  Her  arms  are  the  everlasting  arms  that  bear  us  up  and  on 
over  the  rough  roads  and  through  the  blinding  storms  of  life.  Her 
eyes  are  alwa\-s  looking  down  upon  us  with  a  love  which  no  one 
else  can  feel.  It  is  to  her  tender  bosom  that  we  nestle  from  the 
pitiless  winds  of  life,  and  in  the  folds  of  her  vesture  that  we  bur}'  our 
tired  heads  and  sink  to  rest. 


328  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

But  beside  the  mother,  who  is  dearest  of  all  the  memories  of  home, 
and  whose  sad,  pleading  face  has  often  stayed  the  hand  from  violence 
and  wrong  and  the  feet  from  erring  from  the  paths  "of  right,  and  the 
mind  from  utter  atheism  and  disdain  of  life,  and  the  heart  from  be- 
coming hard  and  dead  to  kindly  feelings  and  affections,  there  are 
other  faces  that  shine  on  us  in  the  memories  of  home.  Perhaps  it  is 
the  aged  grandfather,  who  in  quavering  tones  called  us  his  dear  boy 
or  girl,  and  told  us  wondrous  stories  of  the  days  when  he  was  young; 
or  it  is  grandmother,  who  inspires  us  with  awe  of  the  reverence  and 
duty  which  children  showed  to  parents  when  she  was  a  girl;  or  it 
is  an  aunt,  who  gave  us  pocket-money  when  we  went  to  see  her 
during  the  Christmas  holidays;  or  the  kind  uncle,  perhaps,  who, 
having  no  children  of  his  own,  treated  us  as  kindly  and  took  as  great 
interest  in  our  welfare  as  though  he  had  been  our  father.  Now 
and  then  a  strange  face  rises  up  before  us,  as  that  of  one  who  had 
travelled  over  many  lands  and  seas  since  he  was  our  father's  school- 
fellow, and  whose  weathen-beaten  face  shone  with  the  light  of  happy 
reminiscences  as  he  called  our  father  by  his  Christian  name,  and 
talked  of  the  old  days  with  the  books  and  scenes  and  studies  familiar 
to  them  both.  Shine  out  of  the  past,  dear,  kindly  faces !  Break 
upon  our  ice-bound  life  with  the  sunshine  of  those  hours  in  which 
sorrow  was  not,  nor  want  and  hardship,  nor  bereavement  and  the 
vacant  chair. 

One  face  can  never  be  forgotten  by  most  of  us.  It  is  as  necessary 
a  face  as  though  it  belonged  to  the  family  in  a  multitude  of  homes. 
Shakespeare  speaks  of  the  infant  in  the  nurse's  arms.  The  nurse's 
face,  not  less  than  her  arms,  is  part  of  our  home  memories.  The 
good  creature  loved  and  cared  for  us,  as  we  grew  out  of  utter  helpless- 
ness to  the  use  of  our  limbs  and  the  exercise  of  our  mimic  strength,  as 
dearly  as  if  she  had  been  our  mother  instead  of  our  mother's  help 
and  substitute.  We  hear  much  about  the  mothers  of  great  men  and 
the  influence  they  have  exercised  over  the  mind  and  character,  nor 
can  this  influence  be  overrated.  But  a  volume  might  be  written  upon 
the  nurses  of  great  men  and  women  whose  names  are  unknown  to 


HOME    MEMORIES.  329 

fame  and  who  are  never  heard  of;  for,  except  the  ubiquitous,  sempi- 
ternal and  mythical  nurses  of  George  Washington,  domestic  history 
is  silent  upon  the  influence  which  the  faithful  domestic  servant  has 
often  had  upon  the  disposition,  the  imagination  and  the  future  con- 
duct of  heroes  and  heroines. 

Brothers  and  sisters  fill  the  private  box  in  memory's  theatre  to 
many  of  us.  Some  are  remembered  with  pain  and  grief  too  deep  for 
words,  and  others  with  a  swelling  sense  of  grateful  pride  at  the  noble 
fulfilment  they  have  made  of  early  promise.  It  is  as  though  we  had 
fought  a  brother's  battles  when  we  look  back  upon  his  scars  of 
honorable  warfare.  His  success  is  a  bright  flower-bed  bathed  in  sun- 
shine in  the  story  of  our  humble  lives.  How  proud  the  mother  was 
of  him,  her  daring,  generous,  patient,  self-sacrificing  boy !  If  there 
is  a  weak  brother  in  most  large  families  there  is  generally  a  strong 
one  also,  who  preserves  the  balance  of  family  qualities  and  the  honor 
of  its  record. 

Objects  as  well  as  persons,  though  not  so  vividly,  once  seen  and 
loved  in  childhood,  and  from  having  been  associated  with  the  dawn 
of  life's  perceptions,  become  unfading  furniture  in  the  memories  of 
home.  Who  does  not  sometimes  seem  to  handle  again  the  old 
fishing-rod,  the  antique  box,  the  massive  walking-stick,  the  heredi- 
tary punch-bowl,  that  were  heirlooms  in  the  family !  Even  an  old 
bunch  of  keys  may  be  remembered  because  of  the  rooms  that  it  un- 
locked, some  seldom  visited  and  oppressing  the  spirits  with  an  inde- 
finable gloom ;  others  light,  cheerful,  bright  in  color,  cosy  to  sit  in, 
from  whose  walls  the  old  heroic  sires  and  matrons  of  our  lineage,  or 
the  grand  persons  of  the  world's  history,  looked  down  on  us  with 
placid  condescension.  One  key,  perhaps,  unlocked  a  store-closet  full 
of  dainty  dishes  and  rich  preserves,  and  when  we  heard  it  turn  in  the 
housekeeper's  hand  we  knew  that  company  was  coming  to  dinner, 
and  sighed  the  sigh  of  joyful  anticipation  at  the  remnants  of  jam  or 
jelly  that  would  certainly  find  their  way  at  last  to  our  appreciative 
and  prematurely  smacking  lips.  For  surely  the  smacking  of  the  lips 
is  one  of  the  luxurious  memories  of  home. 


330  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

The  garden  and  the  garden  gate  are  often  prominent  objects  in  the 
picture  of  home  memories,  not  for  the  Mauds  who  have  met  their 
lovers  there  and  phghted  their  juvenile  affections  to  each  other,  but 
because  some  of  the  sweetest  home  memories  are  associated  with 
flowers  and  fields  and  shady  trees  and  green  velvet  lawns.  The  first 
paradise  of  mankind  was  a  garden,  and  the  "  sweet  garden  toil  "  the 
earliest  business  and  pleasure  of  our  first  parents  in  primeval  Eden. 
From  that  day  to  this,  the  flowers  of  the  home  garden  make  perfume 
and  beauty  for  us.  Home  memories  bring  back  the  withered  roses 
and  violets,  lilacs  and  lilies.  Perhaps,  when  a  child,  we  had  a  flower- 
bed of  our  own,  and  a  happy  rivalry  to  keep  it  in  better  order  than 
our  brothers  and  sisters  did  theirs  may  have  been  one  of  our  earliest 
and  highest  ambitions. 

Was  the«re  a  horse  that  bent  his  head  to  our  caresses  and  looked 
with  faithful,  solemn  eyes  at  us  as  we  spoke  to  it  by.  name?  was 
there  a  dog  and  did  we  hope,  like  the  poor  Indian,  that  when 

"  Transplanted  to  that  equal  sky 
Our  faithful  dog  would  bear  us  company  ?  " 

They  have  their  place  in  the  retrospective  picture.  They  are  not  for- 
gotten. Carlo's  bark  and  Dobbin's  trot  echo  down  the  road  of  our 
remembrance.  And  if  we  "  had  a  grandmother  who  had  a  donkey," 
that  donkey  will  assert  its  place  in  our  collection,  remembered,  per- 
haps, because  it  threw  us  gently  off  its  back  or  philosophically  ate 
turnips  from  our  hand. 

But  in  the  winter  days  and  evenings  when  the  snow  was  falling, 
about  which  such  strange  accounts  were  given  us  in  the  nursery, 
when  out-door  amusements  were  impossible  to  our  little  frames,  and 
neither  dog  nor  horse,  donkey  nor  goat  could  share  our  pastimes, 
what  object  rises  to  our  memories  as  most  sacred  to  early  musings 
and  imaginings  ?  Surely,  it  is  the  open  fire,  in  whose  red  coals  or 
dying  embers  we  beheld  chariots  and  horsemen,  and  saw  in  mimic 
and  flickering  splendor  domes,  terraces  and  spires,  faces  with  eyes  of 
fiery  brilliancy,  handSj^armSj  trees^  houses,  crowns   of  glory  and  of 


HOME    MEMORIES. 


331 


burning  gold.  Those  who  visit  our  country  from  more  temperate 
chmes,  where  winter's  reign  is  not  so  long  and  stern,  wonder  that  we 
have  stoves,  that  are  not  ornaments  but  iron  lumber  in  our  houses, 
instead  of  the  cheery  open  fires  of  European  households.  They  for- 
get, or  have  not  learned,  that  our  North  American  winter  has  com- 
pelled this  change ;  but  as  a  matter  of  aesthetic  appearance  and  asso- 
ciation the  stove  is  undoubtedly  an  abomination,  destructive  of  poetic 
reverie  and  suggestive  only  of  the  bare  metallic  hardness  of  human 
life,  not  of  the  fringe  of  glory  and  beauty  that  should  surround  it. 
The  dear  old  grate  with  its  red,  glowing  coals  seemed  to  record  "the 
story  of  our  lives  from  day  to  day ; "  the  gigantic  stove  records  nothing 
but  the  ironmonger's  prosaic  trade.  No  poet  ever  yet  drew  inspira- 
tion from  a  stove.  It  may  be  a  fine  self-feeder,  but  it  is  no  soul- 
feeder.  It  is  of  the  earth  earthy,  and  its  range  of  suggestiveness 
has  no  horizon  except  pots  and  pans.  But  in  the  fires  of  the  old 
nursery  of  childhood's  home,  what  solemn  processions,  what  grand 
illuminations  have  we  seen !  In  the  twilight  hour,  before  the  candles 
or  the  lamps  were  lit,  the  child-philosopher  and  poet  has  read  in  the 
clear  trembling  of  the  red  live  coals  many  an  allegory  and  parable, 
many  a  history  and  prophecy  of  life.  Its  warmth,  so  gradual  in  its 
comfort,  has  soothed  each  nerve  and  limb.  Its  bright  aspect,  re- 
flected by  the  flickering  lights  and  shadows  on  the  walls,  now  bath- 
ing a  window-pane  with  "  dim,  religious  light,"  now  lighting  up  some 
far  corner  which  had  lain  in  shadow,  is  full  of  teaching.  It  is  just 
mysterious  and  checkered  enough  to  give  a  cosy,  grateful  sense  of 
peace  at  home  in  contrast  with  the  wind  and  storm  without.  It 
touches  with  a  sudden  gleam  the  heart  of  the  solitary  gazer,  and  re- 
minds it  of  the  wanderers  and  outcasts  who  arc  shivering  with  the 
winter's  cold  and  have  no  fires  in  their  bare  garrets.  Upward  and 
onward  the  mind  soars  into  the  mysteries  of  the  fire,  an  element  so 
grand  that  the  Persians  worshipped  it  as  God,  and  Christianity  has 
borrowed  from  it  the  most  vivid  descriptions  of  divine  justice  and  the 
purification  of  the  world.  The  lambent  flame,  the  red,  fierce  coal, 
suggest  the  conflagration  of  worlds  in  which  the  works  of  man  and. 


332  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

nature  shall  be  alike  consumed.  It  bears  the  imagination  to  those 
eternal  fires  which  men  call  stars,  that  burn  and  shine  in  the  blue 
ether  like  lamps  around  the  throne  of  the  Eternal.  All  science,  all 
history,  all  poetry,  are  glowing  in  the  nursery  fire  which  keeps  alive 
the  memories  of  home.  The  "  Dies  Irae  "  is  written  in  the  burning 
coals,  and  so  is  the  warmth  and  heat  of  that  divine  beneficence  which 
can  melt  the  heart  of  stone  and  unbind  the  icy  fetters  of  worlds  and 
men. 

It  is  in  the  open  fire  that  the  word  "  home "  is  written.  Take 
away  the  warm,  bright  fire  on  the  winter's  day  and  the  heart  is 
chilled  and  all  tender  memories  are  banished.  It  is  the  live  coal  or 
the  Yule  log  that  makes  the  altar  upon  which  unselfish  sacrifices  are 
offered  and  domestic  affections  are  kept  warm  and  glowing.  The 
furniture  may  be  scanty,  the  dwelling  humble,  but  while  the  fire 
burns  brightly  on  the  hearthstone  we  feel  at  home..  When  the  fire 
of  home  gops  out  we  sink  into  ourselves  and  scarcely  feel  that  we 
are  members  of  a  family,  in  the  chill  sense  of  desolation  and  penury. 
When  husband,  son,  or  father  has  been  on  some  journey  exposed  to 
the  rough,  cold  wind  and  storm,  no  word  of  welcome  is  so  cheering 
as  that  which  bids  them  come  near  the  fire.  The  sense  of  warmth 
and  comfort  steals  over  the  shivering  limbs  ;  their  faces  glow  in  the 
kindly  warmth  and  light;  smiles  and  words  of  cheer  take  the  place 
of  complaints  about  the  weather.  Then  the  wet  boots  are  taken  off, 
and  the  slippers  that  have  been  warming  for  them  by  the  fire  give 
rest  and  ease  to  the  tired,  cold  feet.  "  This  is  bad  weather  to  be 
out  in.  O  how  glad  I  am  to  get  home ! "  is  the  traveller's  ex- 
clamation;  and,  "O  I'm  so  glad  you're  home!"  that  of  each  heart 
that  cares  for  him.  Then  memories  are  quickened  and  tongues  are 
loosened,  and  one  after  another  around  the  fireside  recalls  some  story 
of  the  past,  when,  on  a  night  like  this,  a  dear  one  was  caught  in  a 
snow-storm  and  almost  perished  in  the  cold.  One  remembers  the 
stormy  night  when  the  sailor  of  the  family  set  out  to  join  his  ship, 
and  another  the  midnight  knocking  at  the  door  which  awoke  and 
frightened  them,  but  which  heralded  the  unexpected  return  of  the 
absent  one  from  some  long  voyage.     Some  rough  experience  of  the 


HOME    MEMORIES. 


333 


days  of  war  is  told,  when  the  pelting  storm  was  more  pitiless  than 
the  iron  hail  of  the  artillery. 

What  stories,  too,  can  grandma  tell  of  the  stately  offers  she  re- 
ceived in  the  old  days  of  propriety,  when  every  lad  in  the  village 
took  off  his  cap  and  shuffled  out  of  her  way  with  due  respect  as  she 
went  to  church.  Like  Madame  Blaize,  she  can  affirm  that  "the  king 
himself  has  followed  her  when  she  has  walked  before;"  that  the 
village  doctor  had  to  take  his  own  medicines  when  her  rejection  of 
him  brought  on  a  nervous  cough,  and  that  when  one  of  Washington's 
regiments  was  quartered  in  the  town  the  colonel,  with  many  bows, 
asked  the  honor  of  dancing  a  minuet  with  her. 

Burn  brightly,  winter  fire,  and  weave  romances  of  the  past  as  your 
smoke  curls  up  the  chimney  of  the  happy  home!  No  novelist  can 
write  such  stories  as  those  which  your  bright  light  recalls  of  child- 
hood's days  and  those  of  early  man  or  womanhood,  and  plighted  love 
and  marriage  bells,  and  the  advent  of  the  infant  stranger,  and  the 
voices  that  made  such  tender  music  in  our  hearts,  and  the  partings  to 
meet  again  and  the  partings  to  meet  hereafter  in  a  home  where  tears 
and  partings  are  no  more. 

"  Home,  Sweet  Home  !  "  Unbidden  the  simple  melody,  more  sung 
with  heart  and  voice  through  the  wide  world  than  any  hymn  of  praise 
or  national  anthem,  comes  into  the  mind  and  flows  from  the  fingers 
to  the  page: 

"'Mid  pleasures  and  palaces  though  we  may  roam, 
Be  it  ever  so  humble,  there's  no  place  like  home ! 
A  charm  from  the  sky  seems  to  hallow  us  there. 
Which,  seek  through  the  world,  is  ne'er  met  with  elsewhere  1 

Home,  home,  sweet,  sweet  home! 

There's  no  place  like  home ! 

There's  no  place  like  home ! 

*'An  exile  from  home,  splendor  dazzles  in  vain! 
O,  give  me  my  lowly  thatched  cottage  again  ! 
The  birds  singing  gayly,  that  came  at  my  call- 
Give  me  them  ! — and  the  peace  of  mind,  dearer  than  alli 

Home,  home,  sweet,  sweet  home ! 

There's  no  place  like  home! 

There's  no  place  like  home  I  " 


334  THE    H^EARTHSTONE ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME, 

Such  are  the  h'nes  as  John  Howard  Payne  wrote  them,  and  as  they 
were  punctuated  by  himself.    A  glance  in  retrospect  at  his  own  wan- 
dering and   changeful  life  gives   them  a  stronger  force  and  deeper 
meaning.    The  beautiful  frontispiece  to  this  volume  shows  us  Payne's 
own   fireside,  but  for  manj''  years  of  his  eventful   career  he  had  no 
home.     It  is  a  sad  comment   on   his  world-famous   song  that  scarce 
one  of  his  biographers  has  recorded  even  the  time  and  place  of  his 
birth  correctly.     All  sorts  of  fables  have  been  written  about  him  and 
his  poem.     Some  have  said  that  he  was  starving  in  London  when,  on 
a  bitter  night  beneath  a  street  lamp,  he  wrote  in  anguish  his  plain- 
tive melody.     But  it  was  not  so.     He  himself  has  left  us  the  true 
story.      The   poem   was  written  as   an   interlude  in  his  "  Clari,  the 
Maid   of  Milan,"  an  opera  in  three  acts.      In   1835,   while  at  New 
Orleans,  when  questioned  as  to  the  music  of  the  song,  he  told  his 
friend,  Mr.  James  Rees,  of  Philadelphia,  that  the  air  to   which  he 
had  written  ihe  words  was  not  wholly  original  with  Henry  R.  Bishop, 
its  composer,  and  director  of  the  orchestra  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre, 
where  "  Clari  "  was  first  performed  on  Thursday,  May  8,  1823.     "  I 
first  heard  the  air,"  said  Payne,  "  in  Italy.     One  beautiful  morning, 
as  I  was  strolling  alone  amid  some  delightful  scenery,  my  attention 
was  arrested  by  the  sweet  voice  of  a  peasant  girl  who  was  carrying 
a  basket  laden  with  flowers  and  vegetables.     This  plaintive  air  she 
trilled  out  with  so  much  sweetness  and  simplicity  that  the  melody 
at  once  caught  my  fancy.     I  accosted  her,  and  after  a  few  moments' 
conversation,  I  asked  for  the  name  of  the  song,  which  she  could  not 
give  me,  but  having  a   slight   knowledge   of  music  myself,  barely 
enough  for  the  purpose,  I  requested  her  to  repeat  the  air,  which  she 
did,  while  I  dotted  down  the  notes  as  best  I  could.     It  was  this  air 
that  suggested  the  words  of  '  Home,  Sweet  Home,'  both  of  which  I 
sent  to  Bishop  at  the  time  I  was  preparing  the  opera  of '  Clari '  for  Mr. 
Kemble.    Bishop  happened  to  know  the  air  perfectly  well,  and  adapted 
the  music  to  the  words."     The  poem  was  written  while  Mr.  Payne 
was  staying  in  Paris,  not  in  London. 

Upon   Payne's  monument  in  Tunis,  where  he  was  American  con- 


HOME    MEMORIES.  335 

sul,  and  where  he  died  at  six  in  the  morning  of  the  9th  of  April, 
1852,  it  is  stated  that  he  died  on  April  ist,  and  that  he  was  born  in 
Boston,  Massachusetts.  He  was  born  in  New  York,  and,  in  touch- 
ing terms,  thus  spoke  at  a  banquet  given  him,  December  i,  1832. 
when  he  had  just  returned  to  America,  viz. :  "  I  beheld  again  the  fair 
city  of  my  birth  enthroned  upon  her  beautiful  waters,  and  I  rejoiced 
in  belonging  to  such  a  mother,  and  that  my  weary  pilgrimage  had 
closed  at  such  a  home  !  But  this  succession  of  emotions  wao  but 
symbolical  of  deeper  ones  to  which  I  yet  was  destined  ;  for,  when 
my  steps  sought  the  spots  to  which  in  earlier  life  they  were  accus- 
tomed, I  found  a  severer  darkness  (than  the  storm  he  had  encoun- 
tered) frowning  over  them  in  the  pestilence,  and  houses  untenanted, 
or  most  of  those  which  had  inhabitants  in  tears  and  mourning.  When 
I  asked  for  many  a  friend  of  years  gone  by,  I  was  pointed  to  the 
tomb.  But  presently  the  streets  began  to  brighten  into  what  they 
were;  many  a  warm  hand  renewed  the  earnest  grasp  so  long  ago 
remembered  ;  the  welcome  of  many  a  departed  parent  smiled  on  me 
in  their  children  :  until  at  length  I  beheld  the  memories  of  a  former 
day  gathering  the  lovely  and  the  gallant,  and  the  intellectual,  and 
the  affluent,  in  one  splendid  circle,  where  I  could  almost  fancy  the 
spirits  of  some  of  the  long-buried  dead — who  would  have  united  at 
that  moment  with  the  living — hovering  o'er  a  scene  which  made  me 
forget  the  humbleness  of  my  own  desert  in  exultation  for  the  glorious 
privilege  of  once  again  exclaiming,  as  I  gazed  before  me  :  '  The  wan- 
derer has  a  home,  and  it  is  here  ! '  " 

From  the  age  of  thirteen,  when  his  mother  died,  John  Howard 
Payne  was  without  a  settled  home.  He  spent  some  early  days  at 
Boston,  and  some  years  at  an  humble  cottage  in  East  Hampton,  Long 
Island,  the  regretful  memory  of  whose  attractions  of  sea  and  land 
and  simple  pastimes,  without  the  later  care  and  conflict,  may  have 
touched  his  thoughts  when  he  wrote  "  Home,  Sweet  Home." 

These  corrections  seemed  proper  to  the  mention  of  his  name,  and 
the  simple  verses  which  touched  millions  of  hearts  and  were  printed 
and  sold  by  the  hundred  thousand  in  a  year. 


336  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Payne  was  an  author — what  would  now  be  called  a  Bohemian — as 
well  as  an  actor  in  his  youth.  Of  all  professions  which  a  youth  can 
choose  for  his  career,  those  of  literary  work  and  the  stage  are  the 
most  precarious  and  the  most  homeless.  The  breath  of  popular 
applause  is  fickle  as  to  both.  Two  stanzas,  suggested  by  a  Sicilian 
air  and  introduced  into  his  opera,  did  what  long  years  of  labor  failed 
to  do :  gave  him  "a  name  to  live  "  while  homes  and  languages  exist 
on  earth.  His  remains  are  to  be  brought  to  Washington,  where  a 
statue  is  to  be  erected  to  him,  as  has  already  been  done  in  Brooklyn, 
Long  Island,  where  it  stands  in  Prospect  Park. 

Many  stories  that  have  good  authority,  but  yet  want  certainty,  are 
told  about  the  man  in  connection  with  the  song.  On  one  occasion, 
it  is  said  by  those  who  should  be  well  informed,  that  he  was  about 
to  sell  his  mule,  but  that  the  purchaser  made  him  a  present  of  it 
when  he  found  he  was  the  author  of  "  Home,  Sweet  Home."  On 
another  occasion,  when  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  militia  in 
Georgia,  where  he  was  occupying  with  his  friend,  John  Ross,  Chief 
of  the  Cherokees,  a  miserable  hut,  at  midnight  on  their  journey, 
Payne  heard  one  of  their  captors  singing  his  own  "  Sweet  Home." 
Payne  claimed  the  authorship,  and  sang  it  himself  with  such  true 
feeling  that  the  soldier  swore  he  should  never  go  to  prison  if  he 
could  help  it,  and  on  telling  who  his  prisoner  was  at  Milledgeville, 
he  was  released.  The  Bohemian's  song  to  the  Sicilian  air  is,  indeed, 
like  the  magic  "  sesame  "  to  open  all  doors  and  hearts.  Its  simple 
pathos,  its  suggestion  of  dearest,  holiest  memories  of  Home,  which 
are  beyond  all  words,  has  made  it  from  pole  to  pole  the  song  of 
songs. 


PETS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD. 

"  'Tis  sweet  to  hear  the  watch-doj^'s  honest  bark 

Bay  deep-mouth'd  welcome  as  we  draw  near  home." 

iHE  ideal  home  has  generally  a  pet  in  it,  one  of  those 
"poor  relations"  that  are  not  of  the  human  species 
but  resemble  it  in  some  instincts  or  qualities,  such  as 
affection  and  teachableness,  so  that  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  according  to  their  intelligence,  they  become 
^"  one  of  the  family."  The  dog  and  the  horse  become  playmates  and 
fellow-workers,  and  seem  to  understand  by  tacit  sympathy  the  hon- 
orable and  responsible  position  they  hold  in  the  family  circle.  They 
become  the  confidants  and  familiar  friends  of  the  kind  master  and 
mistress  and  their  children,  and  the  more  gifted  of  them  possess  to 
a  wonderful  extent  the  art  of  mind-reading.  Sometimes  their  family 
and  ours  have  been  long  together  and  have  kept  pace  through  many 
changes  in  mutual  service.  The  old  mare  dies,  but  the  colt  that  kept 
so  close  to  her  in  the  meadow  grows  to  the  age  of  equine  reason 
and  physical  strength  and  beauty,  and  our  children  gallop  on  its  back 
as  we  did  on  its  mother's.  The  characteristics  of  the  dog  are  heredi- 
tary, like  those  of  the  horse.  In  pace,  build  and  disposition  old  Char- 
ley's sons  and  daughters  resemble  himself,  and  still  more  remarkably  do 
dogs  transmit  their  virtues,  and,  alas,  their  faults.  The  tracing  of 
these  family  resemblances  is  a  study  of  which  the  wisest  philosopher 
need  not  be  ashamed.  There  are  dogs  whose  incorruptible  fidelilv 
and  honesty,  and  what  in  human  beings  would  be  called  strong 
moral  and  religious  principle,  were  conspicuous  in  their  parents  and 
won  for  them  the  affection  and  regard  of  those  they  lived  with.  Sc  me 
dogs  display  strategic  and  ingenious  talents — a  slyness  and  artrulnL;s 

22  (337} 


338  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME, 

not  always  unamiable  and  often  very  useful  to  their  human  protectors 
and  allies — which  have  puzzled  those  who  maintain  that  there  is  a 
definite  line  between  human  reason  and  the  cunning  and  instinct  of 
the  brute.  There  are  thousands  of  instances  on  record  in  which 
neither  cunning  nor  instinct  completely  expresses  the  dog's  mind. 
He  reasons  sometimes  on  strictly  logical  principles,  and  is  not  so 
entirely  a  stranger  as  his  slower  human  competitors  in  the  arts  of 
ratiocination  deem  him  to  the  inductive  philosophy.  He  more  fre- 
quently than  his  human  schoolmates  suppresses  the  major  premiss  in 
his  syllogisms,  and  prefers  to  reason  from  the  particular  to  the  uni- 
versal rather  than,  as  man  does,  from  the  universal  to  the  particular. 
He  infers  laws  from  phenomena,  and  looks  for  the  accustomed  dinner- 
bell  with  as  much  punctuality  as  if  he  carried  a  watch.  The  unerring 
instinct  of  dogs  renders  them  of  priceless  value  to  lost  wanderers, 
and  a  case  illustrating  this  point  is  that  of  the  unfortunate  survivors 
of  the  wrecked  "Jeannette."  So  long  as  Lieutenant  DeLong  and 
his  party  kept  their  dogs  they  had  a  chance  of  saving  their  lives 
through  these  faithful  friends,  but  when  the  dogs  were  killed  and 
eaten  their  last  hope  was  gone.  They  had  no  means  of  finding  their 
way  to  food  through  the  power  of  scent,  which  the  dogs  possessed. 

But  the  analogy  must  not  be  pursued  too  far.  Sometimes  what 
is  called  instinct  in  a  brute  resembles  rather  a  supernatural  revelation 
than  any  consecutive  process  like  reasoning.  One  summer's  morn- 
ing it  was  decided  in  a  family  that  out  of  seven  little  kittens  one  only 
should  be  kept.  At  the  breakfast-table  the  awful  question  upon 
which  the  fate  of  the  six  innocents  depended  was  discussed  by  the  . 
Christian  and  kind-hearted  family.  The  paterfamilias  said :  "  My 
dear,  we  cannot  keep  so  many.  Drowning  is  not  torture — "  but,  "O 
papa,  papa,  you  would  not  drown  the  pretty  creatures :  it  would  be 
so  cruel ! "  cried  eagerly  one  after  another  of  the  domestic  jury  of 
little  ones.  The  crest-fallen  judge,  astonished  to  find  himself  voted  a 
monster  of  cruelty  by  his  own  brood,  said :  "  Well,  well,  children, 
settle  it  among  yourselves,"  and  mamma  was  elected  judge  by  them 
in  place  of  the  stern  parent  who  thought  drowning  no  torture.    Now, 


PETS    IN    THE    HOUSEHOLD.  339 

these  kittens  who  were  thus,  unknown  to  themselves,  being  tried  for 
their  lives,  had  never  yet  meandered  outside  the  garden  gate.  The 
extent  of  their  geographical  knowledge  was  the  grass-plat,  and  of  a 
world  beyond  the  kitchen  fire  they  had  never  speculated.  Mamma 
decided  that  as  this  was  the  morning  upon  which  a  travelling  wagon 
would  call  on  its  way  to  the  next  station  ten  miles  off,  the  six  little 
kittens  should  be  tied  together  in  a  bag  and  carried  some  miles  away 
when  they  should  be  turned  loose,  like  little  Ishmaels  without  a 
Hagar,  feline  Arabs  to  find  a  home  in  the  desert,  in  an  open  plain. 
The  driver  did  precisely  as  he  was  bidden.  The  kittens  left  "  the 
warm  precincts  of  the  genial  day,"  and,  securely  tied  in  a  bag  which 
was  placed  at  the  bottom  of  the  wagon,  were  driven  away  into  the 
wide,  wide  world.  The  driver  duly  reported  the  turning  the  kittens 
loose  upon  the  common,  some  eight  miles  away.  A  week  passed 
and  the  tears  of  sorrow  had  been  wiped  from  the  children's  eyes  and 
apprehension  for  the  fate  of  the  six  homeless  kittens  had  been  effaced 
by  newer  incidents,  when  one  of  them,  standing  on  the  stoop  that 
looked  on  the  long  garden  at  the  back  of  the  house,  beheld  a  spec- 
tacle that  made  her  scream  with  terror.  Haggard,  famished,  with 
eyes  of  piteous  appeal  and  awful  suffering,  coming  almost  in  a  line, 
with  "fainting  steps  and  slow,"  a  ghastly  and  spectral  regiment,  came 
up  the  avenue  toward  the  child,  not  the  six,  but  three  out  of  the  six 
kittens.  The  one  that  had  been  kept  was  purring  and  playing  in 
a  child-nurse's  arms,  its  fur  glossy,  its  eyes  full  of  delighted  mischief, 
— what  should  it  know,  in  the  lap  of  luxury,  of  pain,  exposure,  star- 
vation and  death  ? — while  the  three  of  its  brothers  and  sisters,  who 
seemed  to  have  returned  from  another  world,  were  the  most  woe- 
begone of  living  skeletons.  What  had  become  of  the  other  three? 
Doubtless,  they  had  fainted  on  the  long  journey  and  died  forlornly. 
Better  for  them  had  it  been  if  the  jury  of  children  had  followed  their 
papa's  suggestion  of  the  pail  of  water.  But  the  voice  of  nature  for- 
bade all  further  ostracism  of  the  three  poor  wanderers,  one  of  whom 
died  within  an  hour  in  spite  of  warmth  and  milk.  They  were  ad- 
mitted once  more  to  the  family  circle,  and  their  untold  adventures 


340  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

during  their  week  of  absence  were  the  mysterious  talk  of  the  nursery 
on  many  a  winter's  evening. 

This  anecdote,  which  I  have  told  in  tragic  style,  is  simply  true,  and 
the  question  to  be  asked,  not  answered,  is :  By  what  mysterious  intui- 
tion, since  the  way  had  never  been  seen  or  known  by  them,  had  these 
three  kittens  walked  back  eight  miles  from  a  country  plain  during 
that  week  of  misery  ?  Experience  could  not  have  helped  them,  for 
they  had  been  tied  up  in  a  bag  at  the  bottom  of  the  wagon,  and  taken 
a  road  they  had  never  travelled  before.  Reason  could  no  more  have 
helped  them  than  experience,  if  reason  implies  knowledge  as  a  start- 
ing point.  Induction  and  deduction  alike  fail  to  bring  those  kittens 
home.  Instinct  must  have  done  it,  that  instinct  which,  as  Antigone 
declared  of  natural  love,  is  beyond  all  law;  that  instinct  which  brings 
back  the  carrier  dove  with  messages  on  its  wings  and  makes  the 
bloodhound's  nostrils  a  surer  guide  than  all  the  deep-laid  schemes 
of  the  detective  in  tracking  the  fugitive  from  justice. 

In  the  home  circle,  the  cat  and  kitten  are  much  esteemed,  yet,  like 
many  noble  families  among  ourselves,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  any  great 
intellectual,  moral,  or  physical  superiority  in  them.  Catching  mice 
is  scarcely  ground  enough  for  placing  the  cat  among  the  aristocracy 
of  animals.  They  are  sometimes  affectionate  and  seem  to  take  a 
kindly  intt*rest  in  the  family,  but  their  affection  is  not  so  disinterested 
as  that  of  dogs.  They  are  not  forgiving.  A  dog's  affection  will  sur- 
vive the  harshest  treatment,  but  a  cat  never  forgets  a  punishment 
and  rarely  in  its  heart  forgives  it.  One  has  only  to  witness  a  per- 
sonal encounter  between  cat  and  dog  to  be  impressed  with  the 
superior  cunning  of  the  former  and  the  greater  courage  of  the  latter. 
The  cat's  main  purpose  in  her  strategy  seems  to  be  to  "  scratch  his 
eyes  out,"  but  the  dog  is  content  if  he  leave  his  war  prints  on  her 
tail.  Nothing  magnanimous  has  been  recorded  in  feline  history; 
whereas  the  biography  of  dogs  is  full  of  heroism,  self-sacrifice  and 
philanthropy.  We  must  seek  further  then  than  the  heroic  virtues  to 
account  for  the  privileges  allowed  to  cats  in  the  economy  of  home. 
Their  fur  is  sometimes  very  glossy  and  beautiful  and  this  pleases  the 


PETS    IN    THE    HOUSEHOLD.  341 

eye.  Their  purr  is  suggestive  of  repose  beside  a  cosy  fire  and  of 
the  singing  of  the  tea-kettle  and  of  that  social  meal.  The  more 
reserved  and  quiet  manners  of  the  cat  as  compared  with  the  dog^ 
have  operated  in  her  favor  with  the  female  mind.  The  cat  has  more 
of  Jacob's,  the  supplanter's,  nature ;  the  dog  more  of  Esau's  good- 
hearted  impulsiveness.  Hence  she  often  gets  his  birthright  by 
stratagem  as  well  as  her  own,  and  the  juicy  bone  which  by  divine 
right  is  Tray's  is  given  to  Tabitha,  The  dog  is  like  Tom  Jones, 
alv/ays  getting  into  scrapes;  the  cat  is  like  Joseph  Blifil,  a  purring 
hypocrite. 

This  characterization,  however,  is  general.  There  are  dogs  who 
are  as  deficient  in  honesty  as  cats,  and  there  may  be  here  and  there 
a  cat  of  almost  canine  fidelity.  We  should  not  judge  others  severely 
because  they  belong  to  a  different  race  from  ourselves.  But  the 
exuberant  affection  with  which  the  domestic  cat  is  regarded  in  some 
households  has  always  astonished  me.  These  remarks  do  not  apply 
to  kittens,  for,  before,  the  development  of  cunning  and  hypocrisy  in 
the  feline  disposition,  the  happy  alternations  of  play  and  sleep,  the 
innocent  naivete  of  the  kitten's  movements,  its  evident  enjoyment  of 
the  mere  fact  of  existence  and  the  innocency  of  its  sportive  conduct, 
are  very  endearing  and  commendable. 

Parrots  are  sometimes  made  great  pets  of,  although  a  natural  diffi- 
dence and  aversion  to  having  one's  face  or  fingers  bitten  prevents 
most  of  us  from  cultivating  too  close  an  acquaintance  with  them. 
Their  table-talk  is  amusing  and  occasionally  instructive — sometimes, 
perhaps,  a  little  too  personal.  The  small  canary  bird,  whose  bright 
eye  inspects  the  busy  scene  and  whose  solos  are  cheering  in  the 
morning  sunshine,  is  a  safer  pet,  and  less  given  to  mischievous  vocal- 
ism  than  the  parrot. 

All  pets,  whatever  their  kinds  and  degrees  of  beauty,  talent  and 
amiability,  having  been  once  adopted,  have  claims  upon  our  protection 
and  good  will  which  few  arc  mean  and  hard  enough  to  repudiate. 
The  raven,  the  mouse,  the  rabbit,  the  guinea-pig,  and  even  the  tame 
rat,  when  once  admitted  to  intimacy,  should  never  be  forsaken  so 


, 342  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

long  as  they  justify  the  confidence  we  have  reposed  in  them.  The 
mutual  affection  existing  between  the  wholesale  keepers  of  such 
domestic  live-stock  and  their  dependents  is  a  sight  worth  seeing. 
They  know  well  the  hand  that  feeds  them  from  the  hand  reached  out 
in  simulated  kindness  to  annoy  and  teaze  them.  But  it  is  not  advis- 
able for  private  families  to  keep  a  menagerie ;  one  or  at  most  two  pets 
in  the  household  are  enough. 

When  the  claims  of  all  the  varied  species  of  such  pets  are  fairly 
considered,  there  will  appear  no  reason  for  displacing  the  dog  from 
his  supremacy  as  the  only  creature  who  will  of  his  own  free  will  leave 
his  own  kindred  for  the  sake  of  man.  For  the  credit  of  humanity 
it  is  pleasant  to  believe  that  man  has  not  been  wholly  ungrateful  to 
him,  and  that  it  is  not  only  the  poor  Indian  who  can  feel  affection 
for  the  faithful  companion  of  his  fortunes.  The  dog  never  forsakes 
his  master  because  of  any  change  of  worldly  circumstances  or  a  re- 
duced scale  of  living.  In  the  homes,  or  too  often  the  no-homes,  of 
the  very  poor,  the  dog  is  one  of  the  inseparable  family  and  accom- 
panies them  when  they  seek  brighter  fortunes  in  the  far  West.  How- 
ever  scanty  may  be  the  stock  of  food,  the  faithful  creature  has  his 
.  necessary  share.  In  many  Southern  States,  as  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina,  one  may  often  see  two  or  three  big  dogs  belonging  to  one 
poor  family  and  counted  as  so  many  "  hands  "  in  the  domestic  pro- 
gramme. When  the  human  family  migrates  the  dogs  go  with  it, 
and  should  accident  or  death  befall  a  dog  the  family,  especially  the 
children,  are  filled  with  inconsolable  grief.  The  vacant  kennel  is 
sometimes  as  much  an  emblem  of  bereavement  and  sorrow  as  the 
vacant  chair. 

But  all  the  kindness  we  human  beings  have  ever  shown  to  dogs 
does  not  equal  their  benevolent  services  to  us.  Rightly  have  they 
been  deemed  worthy  of  the  greatest  friendship  by  the  greatest  minds. 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  might  not  so  calmly  have  forgiven  the  destruction 
of  his  manuscript  had  it  been  done  by  a  careless  human  domestic. 
But  the  playful  spaniel  had  small  respect  for  the  binomial  theorem. 
Education,  of  which  dogs,  as  the  ancient  Athenians  well  knew,  are 


PETS    IN    THE    HOUSEHOLD.  343 

peculiarly  susceptible,  soon  teaches  a  dog  of  gentle  breeding  never 
to  lay  paws  or  apply  teeth  to  matter  which  he  does  not  know  to  be 
valueless, — like  a  flunky's  leg.  And  even  if  they  sometimes  err 
through  inadvertence  and  injure  furniture  or  books,  these  are  foibles 
to  be  lost  sight  of  in  their  grander  virtues.  When  thieves  are  trying 
to  break  through  and  steal,  who  so  vigilant  as  the  faithful  watch-dog? 
When  sickness  is  in  the  household,  who  notes  the  doctor's  visits  and 
long  face  more  anxiously  than  the  silent,  thoughtful,  sorrowing  dog  ? 
When  the  kind  voice  of  the  master  or  mistress,  or  the  little  play- 
fellow of  the  nursery,  calls  to  him  so  cheerily  no  more,  who  sickens 
and  dies  out  of  the  truth  and  depth  of  his  affection  for  us  except  the 
faithful  dog?  Very  touching  is  the  not  unfrequent  sight  of  the  dog 
refusing  to  be  comforted  and  visiting — to  return  no  more  to  the  home 
now  desolate  to  him — the  new-made  grave  of  his  master.  Often 
in  their  death  they  are  not  divided. 

And  some  of  us  may  have  witnessed  the  counterpart  to  this  picture, 
that  of  a  dog's  funeral,  in  which  a  whole  family  have  followed  the  be- 
loved one  to  his  garden-grave  with  no  mere  hypocrisy  of  grief  Many  a 
strong  man  unused  to  weep  or  "  play  the  woman  "  has  shed  tears  of 
real  grief  at  the  death  of  his  dog.  I  have  always  thought  that  meaner 
even  than  to  shoot  an  enemy  from  behind  a  hedge  is  to  poison  his 
dog  in  order  to  afflict  him  with  an  irreparable  loss.  For  the  dog 
once  loved  and  become  "  one  of  us  "  is  not  to  be  replaced.  Others 
can  be  had  in  plenty,  but  dogs  have  a  biography  which  is  personal 
to  each  one  of  them  when  they  are  of  high  intelligence  and  nobility 
of  character.  Even  strangers  miss  them  and  ask,  "Why,  where's 
your  dog?"  The  Christmas  guests  miss  the  friendly  bark  that  wel- 
comed them,  for  dogs  are  often  the  masters  of  the  ceremonies  and 
guardians  of  the  hearth  who  seemed  to  call  the  names  and  bid  us 
enter  the  hospitable  doors  as  they 

"  Wagged  all  their  tails  and  seemed  to  say 
The  master  knows  you — you're  expected." 

Indeed,  the  humane  and  humanizing  quality  of  a  noble  dog  is  his 


3-^  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

most  homely  and  pleasant  characteristic.  He  can  often  put  us  in 
good  humor  when  we  feel  "  out  of  sorts."  He  can  inspire  us  with 
kindlier  feelings  toward  our  fellow-men  and  women.  He  can  plead 
.-.s  an  eloquent  but  mute  advocate  for  our  truant  boys  when  they  have 
been  out  of  bounds  with  him  on  what  he  knows  as  well  as  they  was 
ail  illicit  gambol.  When  he  has  not  a  perfect  consciousness  of  his 
own  rectitude  he  shows  it,  and  if  he  has  gained  a  dinner  by  unfair 
and  sneaking  artifice,  he  feels  dyspepsia  of  the  heart,  his  food  does 
him  no  good,  he  laments  his  lapse  from  the  straight  path  of  virtue 
and  keeps  out  of  our  sight,  not  so  much  because  he  dreads  the  rod 
as  because  he  feels  that  our  confidence  in  his  integrity  is  broken. 

In  the  training  or  education  of  pets  the  same  method  should  be  fol- 
lowed which  I  have  suggested  in  another  chapter  in  the  case  of  chil- 
dren. Far  better  than  the  rule  of  "  Never  too  late  to  mend  "  is  "  Never 
too  soon  to  begin."  The  lower  animals,  like  ourselves,  are  the  creatures 
of  habit,  and  it  is  as  true  of  the  dog  as  of  the  child  that  if  you  train 
him  up  in  the  way  that  he  should  go,  when  he  is  old  he  will  not  de- 
part from  it.  The  gravest  defect  in  the  education  of  household  pets 
is  that  too  much  pains  are  taken  in  teaching  them  the  fine  arts,  such 
as  standing  on  their  hind  legs  and  holding  skeins  of  silk  for  their 
mistress — they  generally  accompany  a  piano  with  vocal  music  of  their 
own  accord — while  too  little  attention  is  paid  to  moral  and  social 
philosophy.  A  conscientious  perception  of  the  rights  of  persons  and 
the  difference  between  "  meum  "  and  "  tuum"  is  of  more  importance 
than  mere  accomplishments.  The  first  point  in  a  dog's  education  is 
religious  rather  than  secular :  it  is  to  keep  the  commandments  and 
do  as  he  would  be  done  by.  Greediness  and  selfishness  are  easily 
eradicated  in  the  dog,  for  he  is  naturally  the  most  generous  and  un- 
selfish of  creatures.  But  care  for  number  one  is  latent  in  him  as  in 
children,  and  if  encouraged  will  vitiate  and  demoralize  his  whole 
character.  Socratic  temperance  should  be  taught  him  in  the  use  of 
meats.  The  canine  gourmand  is  as  unlovely  as  the  human.  He 
should  not  be  encouraged  to  desire  the  chief  seat  at  feasts,  and  the 
eleemosynary  spirit  taward  poorer  and  less  favored  dogs  should  be 


PETS    IN    THE    HOUSEHOLD.  345 

developed  in  his  breast.  Aoove  all,  let  us  remember  that  a  sense  of 
justice  and  a  love  of  virtue  are  native  to  him,  and  that  it  is  only  the 
dog  who  has  had  evil  surroundings  and  never  enjoyed  the  blessings 
of  a  Christian  home  and  a  refined  education  who  becomes  a  social 
pirate  and  the  terror  of  his  neighborhood.  He  is  strongly  imitative 
and  soon  learns  mercy  from  the  merciful,  order  from  the  orderly, 
manners  from  the  mannerly,  and  tyranny  from  the  tyrannical.  "  The 
merciful  man  regardeth  the  life  of  his  beast,"  and  the  beast  knows 
when  he  is  well  treated  and  has  a  merciful  man  for  his  master.  If 
we  are  good  to  him,  he  will  be  good  to  us. 

CARE  OF  CANARY  BIRDS,  PARROTS,  ETC. 

Canary  Birds. — Almost  all  diseases  to  which  canaries  are  sub- 
ject are  occasioned  by  colds,  which  generally  are  contracted  by 
their  being  placed  in  a  draught  or  in  a  hot  room.  As  a  general 
rule,  a  bird  cannot  be  given  too  much  fresh  air.  Even  in  winter  time, 
.although  it  is  never  quite  safe  to  hang  the  cage  in  the  window,  it  is 
advisable  to  throw  open  the  window  once  or  twice  a  day  to  let  in  the 
air.  Canaries  are  tender  creatures ;  but  they  will  stand  a  low  tem- 
perature— as  low  as  fifty  degrees — providing  you  keep  them  out  of 
draughts.  A  temperature  not  lower  than  sixty  degrees  is  about  right, 
and  this  should  be  maintained  day  and  night,  if  possible.  More  birds 
sicken  and  die  from  diseases  contracted  by  exposure  to  night  chilli- 
ness than  from  any  other  known  cause.  Again,  the  air  of  a  room 
should  not  be  over-heated  or  suffused  with  gas.  The  philosophy  of 
management  of  canaries  may  be  summed  up  thus :  Proper  light, 
proper  air,  and  proper  food.  A  bird  should  never  be  removed  sud- 
denly from  a  dark  to  a  light  room,  or  7h'cc  versa.  All  day  it  should 
be  allowed  the  broad  sunlight,  but  never  exposed  to  the  sun's  direct 
rays. 

Unless  colds  are  relieved  promptly  they  often  turn  to  asthma,  and 
birds  so  diseased  frequently  sit  for  hours  at  a  time  with  their  feathers 
puffed  out,  wheezing  as  though  every  breath  gave  them  intense  pain. 


346  THE  hearthstone;  or,  Life  at  home. 

This  can  be  benefited  by  giving,  in  addition  to  their  regular  food, 
small  particles  of  salt  pork  covered  over  thickly  with  cayenne  pepper. 
A  cracker  soaked  in  water  and  sprinkled  with  cayenne  pepper  is 
equally  good.  When  birds  seem  to  have  lost  their  voices,  which 
they  often  do,  the  most  effectual  remedy  is  to  place  pure  rock  candy 
in  their  drinking  water  and  let  it  dissolve.  If  birds  are  provided  with 
nice  clean  sand  or  gravel,  their  perches  kept  scrupulously  clean,  and 
always  supplied  with  ficsh  water,  they  will  not  suffer  from  sore  feet. 

Cages  should  be  scoured  clean  in  hot  water  frequently  in  order  to 
keep  insects  off  birds.  If,  however,  they  are  troubled  with  them,  put 
the  least  bit  of  kerosene  oil  under  each  wing — say  as  much  as  re- 
mains on  your  little  finger  after  you  have  let  the  drop  fall.  Do  this 
every  ten  days  until  all  are  removed. 

Every  morning  a  canary  should  have  a  daily  allowance  of  summer 
rape  seed,  canary  seed  and  millet  seed,  in  equal  proportions — alto- 
gether a  dessertspoonful  per  day.  Most  birds  will  eat  more  than 
this  amount  if  it  is  allowed  them.  As  early  in  the  spring  as  pos- 
sible, they  should  have  every  day  a  small  quantity  of  chickweed, 
lettuce  or  water-cress,  well  washed  and  fresh.  In  the  winter  a  thin 
slice  of  sweet  apple  may  be  put  in  the  cage  daily.  Once  a  week  in 
winter  half  a  wine-cracker  may  be  put  into  the  cage. 

During  the  moulting  season,  in  July  or  August — months  which 
are  about  as  fatal  to  canary  birds  as  to  infants — the  food  should  be 
carefully  chosen  and  proportioned.  The  mixed  seed  should  be  put 
into  the  cage  as  usual ;  and,  once  a  week  at  least,  a  small  quantity  of 
raw  beef,  of  the  tenderest  sort,  scraped  and  moistened  with  cold  water, 
should  be  put  into  the  cage.  Once  a  week  hard-boiled  yolk  of  egg 
and  grated  cracker  should  be  mixed  and  put  into  the  cage.  Many 
authorities  on  the  treatment  of  birds  object  to  sponge-cake,  lumps  of 
sugar  and  hemp  seed  as  unsuitable.  The  latter  is  thought  to  be  too 
rich  and  fattening  ever  to  give  to  a  canary.  A  canary  should  never 
be  left  in  a  room  alone  constantly.  It  will  droop  and  die.  The  best 
singers  are  those  surrounded  by  the  voices  of  children,  the  sound 
of  a  piano  or  the  hum  of  a  sewing-machine  occasionallv.     Birds, 


PETS    IN    THE    HOUSEHOLD,  347 

like  human  beings,  want  companionship,  and  particularly  these  little 
pets.  And  what  is  true  of  canaries  in  this  respect  is  true  of  all 
birds  kept  in  the  house.  The  best  canaries  are  the  German,  known 
as  Andreasberg,  a  species  raised  in  the  Hartz  Mountains.  They  arc 
the  lono-est  lived  and  most  docile. 

Teaching  a  canary  bird  to  whistle  or  warble  a  tune  requires  patience 
and  persistence,  as  do  most  things  that  are  worth  the  doing.  It 
should  be  placed  in  as  small  a  cage  as  possible ;  cover  the  top  and 
three  sides  of  same  so  that  it  cannot  see  you  or  anything  about  the 
room  to  attract  its  attention ;  then  set  the  cage  in  front  of  a  looking- 
glass  (open  side  to  glass)  so  that  he  can  see  himself,  imagining  it  to 
be  another  bird.  This  done,  commence  as  you  wish,  either  to  whistle 
or  play  on  some  musical  instrument.  Four  or  five  lessons  will  be 
sufficient  if  the  bird  proves  an  apt  scholar. 

Parrots. — The  larger  species  of  parrots  are  known  as  maccaws 
and  cockatoos.  The  smaller  species  are  the  parroquets.  The  gray 
parrot  is  a  native  of  Africa.  These,  of  all  parrots,  make  the  best 
talkers,  are  the  aptest  scholars,  and  possess  the  most  retentive  mem- 
ory. The  gray  parrot  will  learn  to  talk,  whistle,  sing,  cry,  laugh, 
mew  like  a  cat,  bark  like  a  dog,  bray  like  a  donkey,  and  crow  like  a 
game-cock.  They  will  learn  until  about  their  tenth  year,  and  have 
been  known  to  live  in  a  cage  for  neacly  a  century.  In  selecting  one 
you  wish  to  educate  yourself,  never  take  one  that  is  wild.  He  should 
be  tame  enough  so  that  when  you  approach  him  he  will  in  no  way 
act  shy  or  frightened.  A  wild  parrot  can  rarely  be  tamed ;  conse- 
quently, he  can  rarely  be  taught. 

The  most  common  food  given  to  parrots  is  hempsecd,  corn  and 
crackers,  of  which  they  are  extremely  fond.  Some  parrots  are  brought 
up  on  black  coffee  instead  of  water,  while  others  never  drink,  but 
simply  eat  bread  or  cracker  soaked  in  water,  the  moisture  of  which 
is  sufficient  to  satisfy  their  thirst.  Canary  seed  is  the  chief  food  for 
•  parroquets,  though  some  will  eat  hempseed  and  unhulled  rice  (Paddy) 
in  addition  to  canary  seed. 

Mocking-birds. — In  purchasing  a  mocking-bird  a  nestling  is  pre- 


348  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

ferable  to  one  trapped,  from  the  fact  of  its  being  the  tamest  of  the 
two.  It  feels  also  more  contented  in  its  cage,  and  soon  becomes  very 
docile  and  greatly  attached  to  mankind.  The  prepared  food  sold  by 
bird  dealers  is  the  best,  and,  by  way  of  a  change,  a  small  quantity 
of  ants'  eggs  soaked  in  water.  About  one  meal-worm  a  day  will 
greatly  promote  the  song  of  a  bird.  Grasshoppers  and  spiders  should 
only  be  given  to  such  birds  as  the  mocker,  thrush,  starling  or  black- 
bird, or  to  birds  of  that  size.  Small  birds  not  being  able  always  to 
digest  them,  they  are  apt  to  bring  on  disease.  Fine  gravel  mixed  with 
beach  sand  for  the  bottom  of  the  cage  is  preferable  to  gravel  alone. 
All  soft-billed  birds  require  spacious  cages,  as  they  are  generally 
more  active  and  swifter  than  seed-eatincf  birds. 


■      THE  MOTHER  IN  THE  HOME. 

"  I  know  thou  art  gone  where  thy  forehead  is  starred 
With  the  beauty  that  dwelt  in  thy  soul, 
Where  the  hght  of  thy  loveliness  cannot  be  marred. 
Nor  thy  spirit  flung  back  from  its  goal." 

^HE  bravest  woman  I  ever  knew,  and  by  brave  I  mean 
that  steady  courage  that  could  not  be  stampeded — 
that  led  its  possessor  to  make  the  long  pull  and  the 
steady  pull  and  to  be  as  unflinching  at  the  last  as  at 
the  first  of  a  trial — was  the  mother  of  several  children 
and  the  wife  of  a  man  too  unlike  her  to  know  her  character  any  betteir 
at  the  end  of  her  life  than  he  did  when  he  married  her. 

She  was  a  type  of  woman  rare  it  is  true,  but  not  so  rare  that  the 
generality  of  my  readers  will  not  find  in  her  portrait  a  likeness  to 
some  friend  or  acquaintance.  At  the  time  of  which  I  write  her  hus- 
band had  been  unfortunate,  and  the  family  had  been  compelled  to 
remove  from  the  city  where  they  had  lived  to  a  small  farm  they 
owned  several  miles  away.  Not  one  of  the  children  but  felt  they 
would  be  exiled  from  all  the  delights  of  life,  and  so  expressed  them- 
selves. The  mother  met  the  change  quietly,  saying  it  would  benefit 
the  children  to  be  in  the  country  for  a  while,  and  that  she  saw  good  in 
what  was  considered  an  evil.  And,  indeed,  she  saw  good  in  every- 
thing; it  was  one  of  her  characteristics.  She  pictured  the  beauties 
of  hillside  and  of  dale,  and  recounted  the  pleasures  she  had  known  as 
a  child  in  the  country.  To  the  sons  she  talked  of  the  fishing,  the 
horses  and  the  dogs  they  would  have,  and  to  the  daughters  she 
promised  flowers,  picnics  and  the  companionship  of  their  friends 
when  the  place  was  all  fixed  up.     "  Fixing-up  "  was  a  work  that  no 

(349) 


350  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

one  understood  so  well  as  herself  would  require  a  great  deal  of  hard 
labor  with  small  means.  But  she  won  by  her  sweet  persuasiveness 
the  hearty  interest  of  all  the  children,  even  to  the  eldest  daughter, 
the  least  willing  of  all  to  go  to  the  country,  betause  she  was  just 
approaching  the  age  when  girls  like  to  be  with  companions  of  their 
own  age  and  to  go  where  they  are  most  apt  to  meet  the  brothers  of 
their  friends.  A  long  talk  with  her  quite  alone  one  morning  settled 
outward  opposition  from  that  quarter,  and  she  kept  the  promise 
then  made  so  well  that  the  others  called  her  "  mother's  champion." 
The  tact  and  sweetness  of  the  mother  had  won  the  victory,  and  the 
new  home  was  occupied  by  as  rebellious  yet  outwardly  calm  children 
as  ever  felt  resentment  toward  fate  or  paid  homage  to  a  mother's 
beautiful  love.  Somehow  they  felt  that  their  father  had  not  dealt 
fairly  with  their  mother,  and  that  he  was  the  author  and  source  of  all 
their  troubles.  This  feeling  helped  them  to  hold  fast  to  themselves 
when  they  faced  the  actual  realities  of  their  changed  condition  and 
saw  how  ordinary,  compared  to  what  they  had  known,  was  the  place 
they  were  to  call  their  home.  It  seemed  to  them  that  it  would  have 
been  unbearable  but  for  "  mother,"  and  it  would  have  been  had  she 
failed  them  ;  but  she  was  so  bright  a  presence  in  the  house,  so  pleasant 
and  agreeable  to  her  sons  and  daughters,  that,  young  though  they  were, 
they  felt  that  in  her  they  had  more  than  other  people  had  who  never 
had  misfortune,  and  who  owned  the  best  of  everything.  She  smiled 
upon  their  serious  faces,  and  they  felt  constrained  to  go  up  to  her  and 
embrace  her,  or  to  lean  against  her  and  have  their  hair  stroked  by  her 
magnetic  hands.  She  knew  the  way  to  each  of  their  hearts,  and  kept 
watch  over  their  faults  as  Cerberus  did  the  way  to  the  infernal  regions. 
They  in  their  turn  knew  her  every  expression,  and  if  she  looked  pale 
or  seemed  weary  there  was  a  protest  at  once  against  her  going  out 
into  the  sunshine  or  doing  any  more  work  that  day.  This  spirit  she 
indulged  in  her  children,  and  when  she  saw  that  they  wanted  her  to 
be  controlled  by  them  she  would  yield,  taking  the  opportunity  to 
talk  with  them  familiarly  about  their  plans  and  the  work  they  were 
to  help  her  to  do  when  she  got  strong  again.       If  it   rained  she 


MOTHER'S   KNEE. 


THE  MOTHER  IN  THE  HOME.  35  I 

would  show  her  fine  management  by  pleading  weariness  and  dividing 
her  duties  between  her  children.  The  eldest  brother  and  sister  were 
given  the  dining-room  to  make  look  "better  than  it  ever  did  before," 
and  the  two  younger  boys  and  their  little  sisters  were  put  at  light 
tasks  in  her  presence,  which  they  performed  all  too  fast  for  the 
mother,  who  had  to  tax  her  resources  to  devise  further  employment 
for  them.  When  actual  duties  were  exhausted,  she  would  gather 
them  about  her  and  ask  their  advice  about  improvements  she  desired 
to  make.  Such  counsel  as  she  got,  though  it  was  diametrically 
opposite  often  and  again,  she  would  accept  with  a  thoughtful  look 
and  a  quiet  assent  that  made  her  young  advisers  feel  thoroughly 
comfortable  all  day,  believing  that  they  had  helped  her  out  of  a 
dilemma. 

They  were  not  interested  in  their  new  home  or  truly  content  until, 
in  one  of  these  family  meetings,  she  told  them  the  farm  was  her  own, 
and  that  her  father  had  given  it  to  her  long  ago,  after  her  only 
brother,  who  was  to  have  had  it,  died  just  as  he  left  college.  That  if 
she  could  make  it  more  attractive  and  valuable,  by-and-by  they  could 
rent  it  for  enough  to  pay  for  a  home  in  town,  and  with  their  help  she 
thought  she  could  make  it  so.  Then  six  eager,  expectant  faces 
were  about  her,  and  six  tongues  were  talking  at  once.  She  heard 
all  they  had  to  say,  and  wisely  diverted  them  when  their  enthusiasm 
was  expended  and  they  verged  on  sadness  or  repining.  Their  father 
went  into  the  city  every  day  and  they  saw  little  of  him.  That  was 
no  privation  to  them,  because  they  had  their  mother  all  to  them- 
selves all  the  day  long. 

Beautiful  days  those  were  to  that  band  of  children,  and  the  world 
was  in  after  years  all  the  brighter  to  them  for  the  experiences  they  knew 
then.  The  true  beauty  and  unselfishness  of  that  mother's  character 
was  not  understood  wholly  at  the  time,  but  it  was  afterward,  and  it 
strengthened  them  for  the  changes  that  came  in  after  years  to  each 
and  all. 

The  house  was  surrounded  by  what  had  been  a  pretty  paling  fence, 
but  it  had  been  neglected  until   it  needed  careful   repairing  from  one 


352  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

end  to  the  other.  This  was  one  of  the  first  pieces  of  work  the  mother 
desired  to  do,  but  she  had  not  decided  how  to  go  about  it,  until  the 
daughter  complained  of  its  appearance.  Then  there  was  a  visit 
made  to  it,  and  every  paling  was  examined.  The  son  was  carelessly 
told  to  bring  the  hammer  and  nails  along,  and  by  dint  of  encourage- 
ment and  coaxing,  the  loose  boards  were  fastened  as  far  as  there  was 
time  that  day  and  the  whole  subject  of  the  fence  was  discussed  earn- 
estly. It  was  decided  that  the  nailing  could  all  be  done  by  the  oldest 
boy,  and  that  the  hired  man  should  be  called  upon  to  get  substitutes 
for  the  missing  palings.  When  the  fence,  that  had  appeared  as  if  it 
was  getting  tired  and  seemed  only  not  to  fall,  in  places,  had  been 
straightened  and  made  whole  (and  it  required  a  great  deal  of  labor 
to  make  it  so,  and  mother  had  often  gone  out  to  where  her  boy  was 
working  with  flushed  face  and  aching  hands,  sustained  only  by  the 
thought  that  he  was  improving  her  place,  with  the  lemonade  and 
cake  she  had  thoughtfully  put  aside  for  him)  it  was  a  day  of  rejoicing. 

Very  wisely  this  sagacious  woman  had  interested  her  daughters  in 
flowers,  and  the  eldest  was  not  slow  to  see  that  plenty  of  blossoms  in 
that  large  bare  yard  would  make  it  a  different  place.  So  there  were 
trips  made  to  the  woods,  and  vines  and  wild  plants  were  transplanted, 
and  the  few  rose  bushes  on  the  place  were  trimmed  and  the  earth 
about  them  enriched.  No  work  was  kept  up  until  the  children  were 
tired,  ^nd  no  undertaking  was  pursued  until  they  became  restless. 
The  fence  was  painted  twice  over  though  there  was  but  one  brush 
to  go  over  fully  a  mile,  when  both  sides  were  completed,  and  the  ruses 
of  the  sister  and  brother  to  get  off  to  do  this  work,  when  mother 
was  helping  the  one  maid-of-all-work,  commanded  her  respect. 
They  showed  themselves  such  apt  scholars  in  the  art  of  unselfish 
dissimulation  that  she  was  proud  of  them  and  let  them  work  until 
they  had  done  enough.  Then  the  delighted  surprise  of  mother 
when  she  went  out  to  lend  a  helping  hand,  and  found  how  much  was 
accomplished,  was  sufficient  stimulant  for  several  days  to  come. 

When  this  task  was  accomplished  and  pronounced  by  both  father 
and  mother  a  perfect  success,  the  children  were  aroused  to  a  sense 


THE    MOTHER    IN    THE    HOME.  353 

of  pride  in  the  place,  and  the  adornment  of  the  lawn  was  made  their 
one  thought.  They  searched  the  woods  for  wild  roses  and  brought 
from  the  fields  every  plant  that  gave  promise  of  pretty  blossoms. 
Seeds  were  bought  and  carefully  planted,  and  when  the  spring  was 
fairly  upon  them  the  promise  of  a  pretty  yard  was  soon  fulfilled. 
Dead  limbs  had  been  cut,  the  whitewash  brush  had  been  used  on 
the  trunks  of  the  trees,  and  the  ground  was  as  clean  "  as  a  velvet 
carpet,"  to  quote  one  of  the  industrious  brood.  Honeysuckles  that 
had  gone  to  waste  over  the  ground  were  fastened  to  supports,  and 
the  shrubbery  pruned  until  it  all  looked  good  as  new.  Walks  were 
straightened,  borders  made,  and  the  garden  was  reclaimed.  To  do 
all  this  required  a  great  deal  of  toil,  and  no  end  of  utility,  ingenuity 
and  good  management.  The  mother  had  all  these  qualities,  and 
when  she  taught  her  children  how  to  cover  unsightly  stumps  with 
graceful  vines  and  showy  plants,  and  where  to  put  out  shrubs  that 
they  had  secured  after  long  effort,  she  was  inspired  in  her  lessons  by 
the  assurance  of  her  conscience  that  she  was  helping  them  to  over- 
come obstacles  and  meet  misfortune  with  quiet  courage. 

The  spirit  of  improvement  once  thoroughly  aroused  there  was  no 
suppressing  the  plans  formed  to  "  get  the  place  in  order."  It  became 
a  by-word  in  the  family,  and  the  two  eldest  were  accused  of  talking  at 
night  in  their  sleep  and  planning  the  most  unheard-of  things,  all  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  things  to  rights.  The  time  came  when  the 
house  was  in  thorough  order,  and  only  required  to  be  painted  out- 
side to  have  it  "  a  beauty,"  and  the  yard  was  ready  for  the  warm 
days  that  would  bring  up  the  flowers  from  the  ground  and  cause 
the  young  trees  and  shrubs  to  grow.  There  had  been  much  quiet 
talk  about  what  should  be  done  with  the  ugly  old  fence  around  the 
barn.  It  must  remain  because  a  new  one  was  an  expense  not  to  be 
thought  of,  and  it  could  not  be  improved  by  novices.  This  the  chil- 
dren thought,  and  so  said  father  when  he  heard  the  matter  discussed 
by  them.  Mother  listened  quietly  until  he  had  finished  his  remarks 
and  then  discreetly  broke  up  the  consulting  party  and  waited  for  a 
more  convenient  season  to  think  and  act. 
23 


354  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Not  many  days  after  that  the  father  was  surprised  to  see,  instead 
of  the  dingy  old  fence,  a  perfectly  white  one  gleaming  in  the  sun- 
shine and  making  the  whole  place  look  cleaner.  It  had  been  white- 
washed, and  in  each  corner  had  been  planted,  far  enough  back  to  keep 
the  cattle  from  destroying  them,  hollyhocks,  sunflowers  and  dahlias 
alternately.  The  feat  was  performed  under  great  difficulties,  be- 
cause a  rail  fence  is  not  an  easy  article  to  treat  to  a  coat  of  white- 
wash, and  these  workers  were  only  amateurs.  But  they  had  discov- 
ered that  white  fences  added  immensely  to  the  effect  of  the  place, 
and  they  proposed  to  whiten  everything  they  possibly  could.  Un- 
sightly stones  were  gathered  together  in  one  heap,  and  left  until  enough 
could  be  secured  to  make  a  rockery.  Mother  knew  exactly  how  to 
make  a  rockery,  and  the  eagerness  with  which  even  the  youngest  of 
the  children  gathered  stones,  and  the  hard  struggles  the  older  chil- 
dren had  with  the  large  rocks,  was  a  pleasant  recompense  to  the 
mother.  The  rockery  was  made,  the  vines  were  tangled  over  it, 
and  in  the  shaded  situation  in  which  it  had  been  placed  the  water- 
plants  flourished ;  and  it  was  the  chief  ornament  of  the  yard  before  the 
summer  was  ended.  Of  course  trees  do  not  grow  in  a  day,  nor 
flowers  in  a  week,  but  long  before  the  strawberries  were  ripe  in  the 
garden,  the  improvements  made  had  astonished  friends  and  neighbors 
who  had  watched  the  work  going  on,  never  dreaming  it  was  being 
accomplished  by  a  mother  and  her  children. 

It  was  amusing  to  see  the  interest  these  young  people  came  to 
take  in  a  place  they  had  dreaded  to  see,  and  how  indifferent  they  were 
to  holidays  so  long  as  the  improvements  were  going  on. 

A  view  of  the  homely  interior  of  the  poultry  yard  was  seen  from 
the  dining-room  window,  and  this  eye-sore  had  been  the  theme  at 
many  a  rainy  day  chat.  Finally  it  was  agreed  to  ask  father  to  con- 
sult with  them,  and  hear  how  he  would  screen  the  view.  Mother 
had  a  plan  all  her  own  which  she  had  not  broached  to  them,  knowing 
they  were  unequal  to  the  task,  and  she  it  was  who  suggested  that 
their  father  might  like  to  help  them.  When  he  heard  of  the  project 
he  seemed  not  surprised,  and  when  their  mother   gave   them    her 


THE    MOTHER    IN    THE    HOME. 


355 


idea,  which  was  to  plant  two  rows  of  young  maples  half  around  the 
yard,  with  a  summer-house  formed  of  two  rows  of  trees  closely 
planted  at  the  lower  side  of  it,  they  surmised  that  she  had  pre- 
viously prepared  him,  as  she  had  done,  for  the  plan  she  offered. 
This  would  make  a  delightful  walk,  she  said,  and  seats  could  be 
arranged  in  the  summer-house,  which  should  be  quite  around  the 
corner,  so  that  it  would  not  be  seen  until  one  was  almost  in  it, 
and  be  a  great  ornament  to  the  place.  The  idea  was  a  splendid 
one,  and  the  father  could  not  set  up  any  opposition  to  the  plan. 
Who  to  get  to  dig  the  trees,  and  do  the  laying  out  and  planting  was 
the  next  question.  The  wife  quietly  eyed  her  husband  and  said  that 
she  should  vote  that  he  either  stayed  at  home  and  do  the  work  or  hire 
a  man  in  his  stead.  He  laughed  at  the  ideas,  but  was  prevailed  upon 
by  his  impulsive  children  to  promise  to  look  into  the  matter  and  do 
one  or  the  other.  The  point  was  carried,  and  the  walk  was  made  by 
him  and  the  hired  man.  Only  young  saplings  were  planted,  and 
these  were*not  expected  to  grow  up  in  a  season,  but  the  work  was 
done,  and  the  children  thought  it  the  finest  improvement  yet  made. 
It  proved  in  a  few  years  to  be  the  most  notable  feature  on  the  place, 
which  was  acknowledged  to  be  the  handsomest  in  the  neighborhood. 
The  children  worked  so  much  on  it  that  they  learned  to  love  it,  and 
they  acquired  more  practical  knowledge  in  the  year  that  they 
devoted  themselves  to  its  beautifying,  than  they  would  have  gained 
in  a  theoretical  study  of  rural  life  in  thrice  that  time.  When  the  new 
school  term  began,  and  they  returned  to  their  books,  it  was  with  the 
comfortable  feeling  that  they  had  the  prettiest  home  in  all  the  coun- 
try round  about,  and  were  all  the  more  proud  of  its  fame,  because 
they  had  helped  to  make  it  attractive.  They  were  proud  as  well  of 
the  fact  that  their  mother  was  making  the  place  self-supporting  by  the 
admirable  way  in  which  she  managed  the  farm.  It  became  in  the 
course  of  a  few  years  renowned  for  its  fruit  and  marketable  stuff,  and 
the  sale  of  its  surplus  crops  gave  to  the  mother  what  she  had  craved 
as  only  a  mother  can — pecuniary  independence  for  the  sake  of  her 
children.     It  was  not  the  life  she  preferred,  nor  the  one  she  was  best 


356  THE  hearthstone;    or,  life  at  home.  • 

fitted  for  or  entitled  to,  by  right  of  her  talents;  but  it  was  the  best 
under  the  circumstances,  and  the  feeling  that  she  had  been  able  to 
lead  it  was  a  gratifying  one. 

That  mother  was  the  ideal  one,  because  she  was  great-hearted,  gifted, 
and  above  all  things  she  was  wise.  She  was  a  woman  whose  native 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart,  whose  rectitude  and  bravery  would  have 
fitted  her  to  adorn  the  highest  stations  in  life ;  but  it  was  her  lot  to  be 
an  unpretending  wife  and  mother ;  to  live  a  retired  domestic  career, 
finding  no  great  reward  in  doing  her  daily  duty,  but  doing  it  well 
nevertheless.  In  all  her  life  she  was  not  compensated  for  the  effort 
she  had  made,  the  sufferings  inflicted  by  others  that  she  had  endured 
so  patiently.  But  she  respected  herself,  and  was  true  to  the  highest 
impulses  of  her  being.  So  beautiful  a  character  could  not  live  in 
vain,  did  not.     Her  influence  was  far  reaching  and  powerful. 

Those  who  came  under  it  were  the  better  ever  afterward.  Her 
husband's  nature  was  transformed  under  it,  and  her  children,  inheriting 
much  of  his  indifference  and  irascibility  of  temper,  were  moulded  into 
better  beings  than  they  could  have  been  under  any  less  noble  hand 
than  guided  them.  They  grew  to  be  men  and  women,  and,  separated 
widely  by  circumstance,  were  nevertheless  forever  bound  together  by 
the  memory  of  her  love.  To  have  been  her  child  was  a  gracious 
boon  deeply  appreciated  in  after  years,  when  her  true  superiority  was 
fully  understood  through  acquaintance  with  the  world. 

Taught  and  trained  by  so  good  and  intelligent  a  woman,  how  easy 
to  face  and  conquer  temptation  and  sin,  and  to  travel  along  the  dusty 
highway  of  life,  soiled  perhaps  for  the  time  being  by  the  dust  or  mire 
met  with,  but  not  stained  ineffaceably. 

Such  was  the  mother  whose  image  is  ever  present  to  many  when 
the  word  Home  is  named.  Like  a  benediction,  women  like  this 
one  grace  homes  and  make  them  altars  about  which  twine  the  heart- 
strings of  their  children ;  make  them  temples  filled  with  the  sweet 
perfume  of  love,  innocence  and  peace;  and  the  heritage  of  such  a 
home  is  the  rarest  blessing  a  man  or  woman  ever  possesses,  or 
can  ever  Imagine  on  earth. 


DUTY  OF  PAl\Et(rS  TO  mM^\ 

"To  thine  own  self  be  true,  and  it  shall  follow  as  the  night  the  day  thou  canst  not  then 

be  false  to  any  man." 

[O  the  fifth  commandment,  it  has  always  seemed  to  ine, 
there  should  have  been  a  codicil,  reading:  "Parents, 
be  just  to  your  children  in  the  least  as  in  the  greatest 
thing."  Were  those  who  are  parents  rightly  fitted  for 
their  duty,  it  would  be  needless  to  present  the  claims 
of  children,  but  in  a  country  where  parentage  is  assumed  with  an  in- 
difference that  can  only  be  the  result  of  ignorance,  no  subject  requires 
so  much  consideration  as  this. 

Children  oftentimes  spend  their  early  years  in  the  endurance  of 
wrongs  that  increase  as  they  grow  older,  and  which  intensify  their 
feelings  against  life,  and  their  future  in  it.  The  reason  that  there  is 
so  much  hope  among  children  is  because  there  is  so  little  present 
satisfaction.  They  are  martyrs  to  a  greater  variety  of  disappointed 
hopes  than  any  class  of  the  community,  and  their  sufferings  are  as 
real  to  them  as  are  the  troubles  of  older  people,  and  are  as  often  of 
as  much  consequence. 

I  never  saw  a  child  put  off  with  unjust  threats  and  told  only  half 
truths,  if  not  absolute  falsehoods,  for  the  trivial  reason,  perhaps,  that  its 
parents  might  be  rid  of  its  presence,  that  I  did  not  say  in  my  inmost  soul, 
"I  wonder  that  men  and  women  are  as  decent  as  they  are,  considering 
their  bringing  up."  Fathers  and  mothers  tyrannize  over  their  children 
in  ways  they  scarcely  realize,  because  they  are  absolute  rulers.  There 
is  no  appeal  from  their  judgments,  and  the  child  is  compelled  to  abide 
by  decisions  that  may  be  absolutely  unjust.  The  cruelty  of  injustice 
is  not  its  present  suffering,  but  the  sting  it  leaves  behind,  the  scar  that 

(357) 


358  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

certainly  time  does  not  efface,  and  perhaps  not  even  eternity.  There  is 
no  feehng  so  absolutely  perennial,  so  wholly  unforgetable  as  that  of 
injustice  from  a  father  or  mother.  The  wrongs  of  others  may  be 
forgiven  and  forgotten,  but  the  memory  of  a  wrong  received  at  the 
hands  of  parents  is  not  wiped  out  in  any  child's  breast  until  old  age 
dulls  memory  and  oblivion  sets  recollection  free. 

The  manifold  sins  that  injustice  begets  in  the  young  should  be 
earnestly  considered  by  parents.  First  of  all  is  deceit,  for  a  child 
quickly  resorts  to  it,  and  relies  upon  it  if  a  defence  against  its  supe- 
riors is  required.  The  shame  of  telling  a  falsehood  is  less  keenly  felt, 
because  the  truth  would  not  make  the  same  impression,  and  so  the 
little  being  who  should  be  jealously  guarded  is  thrown  off  and  put 
on  the  defensive,  and  the  spirit  of  evil  is  fostered  where  the  chastity 
of  truth  should  be  inculcated. 

Who  has  not  seen  an  enraged  father  shake  a  helpless  infant  because 
it  cried,  and  a  nervous  mother  strike  her  child  because  its  restless- 
ness irritated  her?  The  poor  little  squirming  victim  could  only  realize 
its  added  pain,  and  perhaps  know  from  whence  it  came,  but  it  could 
not  possibly  understand  the  association  between  its  cries  and  its 
parents'  ill  temper.  As  time  passed  and  its  mind  expanded,  it  did, 
however,  and  with  the  knowledge  there  came  added  pain. 

The  child-life  of  the  Saviour  has  never  been  written,  and  there  is 
but  little  said  of  it  in  the  New  Testament.  It  has  often  occurred  to 
me  that  the  fact  was  due  to  the  inability  of  any  man  to  rightly  fathom 
it.  What  a  theme  it  would  have  been  under  his  mother's  hand ! 
But  in  those  days,  as  in  these,  though  to  a  lesser  degree  now  than 
then,  the  rights  of  children  were  ignored,  and  the  earthly  father  of 
Jesus  as  little  knew  his  character  as  he  anticipated  his  future  career. 
The  story  of  his  childhood  if  told  would  doubtless  be  a  revelation 
of  parental  gentleness  and  justice,  of  right  dealing  and  high  spiritual 
and  moral  teachings  from  his  mother  certainly,  and  most  likely  from 
his  father. 

He  inspired  and  taught  the  commandment,  "  Honor  thy  father  and 
thy  mother,"  and  we  have  attained  to  that  position  where  the  man  or 


DUTY    OF    PARENTS    TO    CHILDREN.  359 

woman  who  neglects  his  parents  in  their  old  age,  or  under  reverses 
of  fortune,  is  held  in  contempt ;  but  we  have  not  ascended  to  that 
plane  where  love  and  filial  reverence  are  invariably  the  motives  that 
actuate  such  recognition  of  this  commandment.  The  average  man 
or  woman  will  treat  with  kindness  the  old  father  or  mother  who  has 
survived  his  or  her  days  of  usefulness,  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
they  are  honored.  On  this,  as  on  many  another  subject,  we  indulge 
in  endless  cant,  but  the  truth  remains  that  children  do  not  love  their 
parents  simply  by  reason  of  relationship  any  more  than  they  respect 
old  age  because  it  is  merely  old  age. 

Men  and  women  are  foolish  to  expect  more  of  a  harvest  than  they 
have  sown.  Ingratitude  is  ranked  as  a  deadly  sin,  and  is  one  of  the 
most  repellent  of  human  attributes;  but  has  it  not  often  been  true 
that  children  have  been  unjustly  accused  of  possessing  it?  The  self- 
ishness of  parents  is  as  obnoxious  a  vice,  but  it  is  far  more  leniently 
dealt  with  by  the  world. 

The  exceptional  maltreatment  of  parents  by  children  is  much 
commented  upon,  and  loudly  condemned ;  but  who  among  us  sees 
blasphemy  in  the  way  a  coarse  father  addresses  his  child,  or  thinks  it 
an  insult  that  children  receive,  when  they  are  repelled  heedlessly? 
We  have  one  law  for  age  and  another  for  youth,  and  it  is  cruel.  The 
child  who  is  deceived  will  be  deceitful;  the  child  who  is  swindled 
will  be  tempted  to  steal ;  the  child  who  is  defrauded  of  his  birthright 
will  not  forgive  the  wrong  in  all  human  life. 

The  saddest  of  earthly  retrospects  is  that  of  an  unworthy  parent. 
What  can  equal  the  misery  of  a  human  soul  awakened  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  lasting  injury  done  another  soul  that  owes  to  it  its  earthly 
existence?  Surely  the  judgment  day  is  forever  with  such,  and  time 
offers  no  opportunity  for  reparation. 

We  know  so  little  about  the  laws  of  procreation,  and  are  so  in- 
different to  such  knowledge,  that  little  children  have  a  hard  time  from 
their  earliest  existence  until  they  are  grown.  With  many  almost  all 
childiiood  is  a  time  hurriedly  passed  by,  and  as  quickly  ignored  as 
possible,    because  it  represents  dependence,  subjection,  and  chafing 


3O0  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

restraints.  How  often  is  this  season  wholly  neglected !  how  rarely 
fully  perfected  !  Who  is  to  blame  ?  Certainly  not  children.  Who 
then?  The  fathers  and  mothers,  whose  ignorance  or  indifference,  or 
both,  blind  them  to  their  own  responsibility,  and  whose  selfishness 
torments  children  until  they  escape  from  it. 

Perhaps  if  men  and  women  were  better  fitted  to  be  parents,  the 
terrible  miseries  inflicted  upon  their  offspring  would  be  averted.  It 
is  a  knowledge  for  which  the  world  stands  more  in  need  to-day  than 
of  any  other.  It  is  a  knovv^ledge  that  those  who  possess  it  ought  to 
teach  with  earnestness,  in  all  seasons  and  places. 

It  will  not  avail  that  fathers  regret  the  unfortunate  heritage  of  their 
sons,  and  that  mothers  shed  rivers  of  tears  over  the  waywardness  of 
their  daughters.  It  is  not  enough  that  they  wish  they  had  never 
given  birth  to  such  children.  It  is  their  business  to  anticipate  the 
characters  of  their  children,  and  to  give  life  only  under  such  circum- 
stances as  will  with  certainty  make  it  a  blessing  and  nothing 
else.  Prudes  and  tyrants  shut  their  eyes  to  this  subject,  and  apply 
the  epithet  of  coarseness  to  those  who  urge  its  consideration,  but  this 
does  not  avail.  The  child  who  is  outraged  in  its  conception  will  bring 
its  Nemesis  with  it,  and  there  will  be  no  escape  from  it.  "  The  sins 
of  the  parents  are  visited  upon  the  children,"  and  most  frequently  the 
retaliation  of  children  upon  parents  is  in  proportion  to  the  brand  that 
is  put  upon  them.  If  parents  could  always  foresee  the  natures  of  their 
children,  as  it  is  their  high  privilege  to  do,  and  not  only  foresee  them, 
but  mould  them  nobly  or  otherwise,  with  absolute  certainty,  the  evil 
results  of  irresponsible  parentage  would  be  at  an  end  forever,  and  this 
Biblical  saying  would  cease  to  have  the  terrible  meaning  to  us  that 
it  now  possesses. 

When  will  we  become  reasoning  beings  and  increase  the  glory  of 
God  by  elevating  the  standard  of  man  ?  When  the  tyranny  and 
oppression  of  the  weak  over  the  strong  is  lessened,  then  children  will 
not  come  into  the  world  with  hatred  and  revenge  deeply  instilled  in 
their  beings.  Then  will  not  fathers  be  humbled  to  the  dust  in  after 
years  by  the  misdeeds  of  their  children,  whom  they  have  begotten  in 


DUTY  OF  PARENTS  TO  CHILDREN.  36 1 

ignorance,  and  then  expect  them  to  be  possessed  of  reason  and 
righteousness.  Until  they  are  thus  fairly  treated  will  the  family  life  be 
wanting  in  beauty,  in  harmony  and  in  true  happiness,  and  the  world 
be  full  of  distress  and  discord. 

The  right  to  a  good  organization,  to  a  happy  temperament,  should 
not  be  denied  a  child,  but  should  be  earnestly  striven  for  by  parents — 
not  mothers  only,  but  fathers  and  mothers.  And  when  children  are 
born  into  homes  they  should  be  made  welcome  and  treated  with 
justice  as  well  as  affection ;  with  respect  rather  than  indulgence. 

The  world  is  working  in  the  direction  of  justice  to  children,  but  as 
yet  only  the  elementary  steps  have  been  taken.  Only  the  rankest 
brutality  is  punished ;  the  most  glaring  inhumanity  repressed.  Many 
forms  of  injustice  to  children  cannot  be  reached  by  organizations  of 
a  philanthropic  kind ;  the  education  of  men  and  women  in  the  direc- 
tion of  marriage  and  parentage  is  the  preliminary  work.  Societies 
may  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  child  of  a  drunken  brute  by  tak- 
ing it  from  his  control,  but  they  cannot  reach  the  incompetent  and 
selfish  father  who  fills  the  sacred  office  of  parent  unworthily.  The 
births  of  unhealthy,  disorganized  children  cannot  be  prevented  by 
law;  moral  elevation  alone  will  make  men  and  women  refuse  to  assume 
the  responsibilities  of  parentage  until  they  can  rightly  train  and 
develop  their  offspring.  People  marry  too  young,  as  a  rule,  and 
women  are  mothers  frequently  before  their  own  girlhood  is  over. 
This  is  not  as  it  should  be,  and  until  the  evil  of  heedless  marriages 
is  corrected  the  characters  and  health  of  children  will  not  improve. 

The  pathetic  picture  of  young  mothers,  scarcely  more  than  girls 
themselves,  bearing  the  burdens  of  motherhood,  hampered  by  ignor- 
ance and  poor  health,  is  one  all  too  familiar.  The  sight  is  one  pitiable 
and  discouraging.  Life  is  saddened  to  the  wise  by  the  repetition 
of  such  examples,  and  the  enthusiasts  who  in  the  quiet  of  their  own 
studies  see  the  dawn  of  the  day  when  a  healthier  and  nobler  race 
of  men  will  come  upon  the  scene  of  action,  put  aside  their  bright 
hopes  when  they  look  upon  such  mothers  as  these,  engaged  in  the 
rearing  and  training  of  the  young.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  children 


362  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

of  such  mothers  get  no  training  and  very  Httle  of  the  right  kind  of 
care.  They  are  dragged  through  the  different  stages  of  their  growth 
and  arrive  at  the  age  of  ten  or  twelve  years  without  having  had  other 
attention  than  pertained  to  their  bodies,  and  that  inadequately.  The 
middle  class  in  tlie  United  States  comprehends  a  large  society.  In 
it  are  some  of  the  best  people  the  nation  has  produced,  and  again 
very  many  who  are  the  natural  products  of  ill-advised  marriages. 
These  are  the  ordinary  common-place,  and,  generally  speaking,  the 
morbid  and  unhealthy  men  and  women  who  see  no  beauty  in  life, 
and  whose  minds  are  wholly  shut  to  the  higher  truths  of  philosophy. 
Their  children  are  not  improvements  upon  themselves,  and  the  world 
is  hardly  benefited  by  their  existence. 

The  home  that  is  without  children  is  lonely  and  wanting  in  the  love 
element,  but  such  a  home  is  preferable  to  those  in  which  is  apparent 
the  injustice  of  parents  to  the  children  they  have  brought  into  the 
world  under  discordant  or  ignorant  circumstances,  and  who  are  maimed 
before  the  battle  in  which  they  are  to  enter  upon  is  begun. 

The  injustice  done  children  by  the  selfishness  of  fathers  who  smoke 
cigars  or  pipes,  for  instance,  is  one  that  injures  the  health  of  children 
permanently.  Yet  men  scarcely  permit  this  habit  to  be  criticised, 
but  the  nervous  wives  and  mothers  of  this  land  are  its  victims,  and 
every  honest  physician,  admits  this  truth.  Every  child  is  entitled  to 
nature's  first  food,  pure  air;  yet  this  most  essential  of  all  rights  is  often 
denied  them.  Ev^ery  child  is  entitled  to  a  clean  body,  and  yet  how 
few  of  the  children  in  the  world  to-day  are  kept  neat  and  clean  any 
portion  of  the  time !  Every  child  born  into  this  world  is  entitled  to 
decent  rearing.  Only  cowards  and  moral  delinquents  shirk  so  grave 
a  subject.  The  heathen  nations  cared  for,  and  do  now  care  for,  their 
young  more  reasonably  than  do  the  people  of  Christian  countries.  As 
a  rule,  men,  even  those  of  the  most  extensive  culture,  are  wholly  un- 
educated on  the  physiological  questions  relating  to  parentage.  They 
are  the  authors  of  the  existence  of  children  utterly  unfit  to  live  often- 
times. One  of  the  most  celebrated  divines  of  his  denomination  in 
the  United  States  has  an  idiot  child,  and  has  been  heard  repeatedly 


DUTY    OF    PARENTS    TO    CHILDREN.  363 

to  allude  to  it  as  proof  of  God's  love  to  him,  since  "  God  loveth  whom 
he  chasteneth."  Strange  to  say,  no  one  has  ever  rebuked  him  pub- 
licly for  such  blasphemy.  A  man  who  knows  no  more  than  he  of 
the  laws  governing  procreation  should  be  driven  from  his  post  of 
public  teacher.  He  is  makijig  God  responsible  for  his  own  errors, 
and  then  strengthening  his  position  with  Scriptural  quotations. 

Children  who  grow  up  to  adult  years  only  to  turn  and  rend  the 
hearts  of  their  parents  are  unanimously  condemned,  yet  the  real  cause 
of  their  course  may  be  found  to  be  due  to  conditions  under  which 
they  were  conceived  and  brought  into  the  world.  If  children  are  un- 
welcome arrivals  in  their  parents'  house,  if  the  expense  of  their  main- 
tenance is  a  cross,  and  their  presence  a  drawback  to  the  comfort  and 
well-being  of  others  there,  is  it  not  to  be  anticipated  that  they  will 
have  inbred  in  the  fibres  of  their  being  the  murder,  revenge,  hatred 
and  contempt  which,  while  lying  dormant  for  years,  may  break  out 
at  an  unexpected  moment  ?  It  is  a  well-nigh  hopeless  task  to  plead 
for  justice  to  children  while  motherhood  is  treated  in  the  unholy 
manner  it  is.  The  question  of  justice  to  children  comprehends  justice 
to  mothers,  and  until  the  latter  is  secured,  the  first  need  not  be  an- 
ticipated ;  it  is  out  of  the  question.  There  is  much  said  about  women 
having  the  training  and  moulding  of  children  in  their  own  hands.  It 
is  not  the  truth  so  long  as  they  have  not  yet  as  individuals  nor  as  a 
sex  learned  the  first  and  inalienable  right  of  maternity. 

Truly,  the  inhumanity  of  man  to  man  makes  countless  thousands 
mourn.  One  of  the  most  unhappy  and  discordant  men  who  ever 
lived,  and  who  devoted  the  larger  part  of  his  time  to  writing  unchari- 
tably of  women  and  reviling  their  claims  for  larger  liberty,  was  the 
son  of  an  insane  mother.  He  imbibed  his  father's  contempt  and  scorn 
for  the  mother  who,  unconscious  of  her  surroundings,  gave  birth  to 
children.  His  memoir  is  to  be  found  in  all  libraries,  and  yet  there 
is  no  word  of  condemnation  for  that  father  who  was  simply  not  more, 
not  less,  than  a  brute.  Had  his  son  become  an  Ishmaelite  instead  of 
a  misanthrope  the  fact  should  not  have  occasioned  surprise. 

The  crime  of  infanticide  is  denounced  as  inhuman  in  mothers,  yet 


364  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

fathers  are  equally  responsible  for  it.  Women  are  driven  to  it  in 
many  cases  through  fear  of  bitter  suffering.  Children  are  begotten 
not  unfrequently  when  there  is  grim  want  to  be  faced,  and  the  dread 
of  burdens  too  heavy  to  bear  leads  to  this  awful  crime. 

Justice  to  children  demands  that  life  should  not  be  given  where 
there  is  not  the  means  to  support  it ;  and  a  time  will  come  when 
governments  will  deal  directly  with  the  question  of  parentage,  but  it 
will  not  be  in  this  age.  We  are  rioting  in  what  we  call  liberty,  but 
what  is  really  license.  There  is  nothing  men  so  quickly  resent  as 
admonition  regarding  a  too  numerous  progeny,  or  of  becoming  the 
fathers  of  imbeciles  and  idiots  or  depraved  offspring.  Time  will  be 
when  the  nation  will  hold  itself  directly  responsible  for  such  a  popu- 
lation as  fills  our  charitable  institutions.  The  State  will  directly  con- 
cern itself  about  the  children  of  irresponsible  and  unworthy  parents, 
and  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  the  injustice  now  visited  upon  helpless 
innocents  be  at  an  end. 


DEATH  IN  THE  HOME. 

"  The  living  are  the  only  dead  ; 

The  dead  live, — nevermore  to  die; 
And  often,  when  we  mourn  them  fled, 
They  never  were  so  nigh  !  " 

,EREMY  TAYLOR,  "the  Shakespeare  of  divines,"  has 
said  that  human  beings  probably  suffer  as  much  in  the 
process  of  being  born  as  in  that  of  dying.  It  may 
^^  well  be  so,  for  death  itself  is  seldom  painful,  and  even 
the  most  painful  illnesses,  when  they  terminate  fatally, 
are  generally  marked  by  a  cessation  of  pain  some  time  before  the 
close.  Death  is  generally  a  tranquil  falling  asleep,  and  if  it  were  not 
for  the  materialism  of  the  human  mind,  which  regards  the  stopping 
of  the  physical  machinery  as  the  extinction  of  the  spiritual  principle, 
it  would  be  very  difficult  to  account  for  the  superstitions  with  which 
death  has  in  all  ages  been  associated.  To  a  higher  philosophy  and 
a  more  spiritual  insight  death  is  really  not  so  much  to  be  lamented 
as  pain,  yet  parents  and  relatives  would  rather  see  a  sufferer  linger 
than  sink  into  the  placid  sleep  of  death.  There  is  surely  some  selfish- 
ness in  this,  although  its  cause  is  the  natural  affection  which  hangs 
upon  the  well-known  voice  and  lives  in  the  sunshine  of  the  loved 
one's  face.  Yet  it  is  certainly  paradoxical,  if  not  unaccountable,  that 
the  old  heathens  should  have  had  the  fortitude  to  bear  the  parting 
better  than  Christians  who  have  a  stronger  hope  than  they  of  being 
reunited  in  another  world. 

How  gloomy  is  the  home  which  death  has  entered !  The  only 
calm  face  is  often  that  of  the  dead  wife  or  husband,  parent  or  child. 
People  speak  to  one  another  in  a  constrained  and  unnatural  whisper, 

(365) 


366  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

as  though  afraid  of  disturbing  a  repose  which  can  never  more  be 
broken  by  disturbance.  Then  there  is  the  shutting  out  of  the  sun- 
light, the  Hghting  of  candles  in  the  dark  chambers,  the  stealthy  tread 
of  the  undertaker,  and  in  some  countries  of  the  mutes  who  are  to 
put  on  the  paid  hypocrisy  of  grief  Nothing  can  well  be  imagined 
more  utterly  desolate  and  gloomy  than  the  time-honored  Christian 
funeral. 

In  former  times,  at  funerals  in  England,  the  widow,  daughters,  wife, 
sisters  and  other  near  relatives  of  the  dead,  sat  in  awful  silence,  clothed 
in  black,  except  the  white  cap  or  cravat,  and  with  two  mute%at  the 
door  of  the  house.  Then  the  hearse  bearing  the  corpse,  and  the  car- 
riages, or  mourning  coaches,  as  they  were  called,  carrying  the  clergy- 
men and  male  relatives  and  mourners  only,  wended  their  melancholy 
way  to  the  church-yard,  where,  after  a  brief,  solemn  service,  the  funeral 
was  over  and  the  solemn  guests  departed.  For  the  conventional 
twelvemonth  the  family  abstained  from  all  the  social  gayeties  of  life, 
and  even  from  its  most  innocent  pleasures,  and  went  about  to  church 
or  business  clothed  in  the  deepest  mourning.  There  has  lately  been 
a  relaxation  of  these  rigid  ceremonies,  but  it  is  still  the  case  that 
first,  last  and  all  the  time  everything  that  is  connected  symbolically 
with  death  is  gloomy  and  depressing. 

Yet  what  does  religion,  and  especially  a  religion  so  sublime  as 
Christianity,  amount  to  if  it  cannot  shed  the  light  of  hope  and  resig- 
nation upon  the  inevitable  lot  of  all !  It  is  hard  to  lose  the  child 
upon  whom  a  mother's  love  has  been  so  lavishly  expended,  and  the 
wrench  to  nature  is  indeed  a  terrible  one.  But  if  the  mother  really 
has  faith  that  death  is  but  the  gateway  of  a  happier  life,  in  which 
pain  and  sickness  and  disappointment  cannot  enter,  she  ought  surely 
not  to  be  sorry  for  her  little  one  as  though  some  dreadful  evil  had 
befallen  it.  So  also  of  the  husband  or  wife,  the  father  or  mother. 
Death  is  no  unusual  accident  or  catastrophe,  but  the  common  lot.  A 
few  years  more  is  all  that  could  have  been  added  to  the  life  that  stops. 
If  the  joys  of  this  brief  existence  are  laid  down,  so  also  are  its  sor- 
rows, and  surely  the  latter  are  quite  as  real  as  the  former.     We  need 


DEATH    IN    THE    HOME,  367 

not  say  with  Lord  Byron  that  whatever  life  has  been  to  any  one  "  'tis 
something  better  not  to  be,"  but  we  may  surely  feel,  as  many  of  the 
great  and  good,  even  before  gospel  times,  have  felt,  that  if  death  be 
not  a  good,  it  is  certainly  not  an  evil. 

Very  comforting,  within  rational  limits,  is  the  belief  that  the  dead 
are  only  separated  from  us  for  a  brief  interval,  by  a  thin  veil,  th^jough 
which  we  may,  in  happy  moments,  catch  glimpses  of  them,  and  in 
hours  of  gloom  and  solitude  feel  their  cheering  presence.  Some  per- 
sons of  strong  spiritual  perception  feel  this  nearness  and  communion 
as  their  greatest  solace.  With  others  it  may  sometimes  become  a 
superstition,  as  indeed  every  other  consolatory  belief  may.  It  is  a 
blessed  and  triumphant  victory  over  human  weakness  when  even  a 
mother  can  see  and  handle  the  toys  and  garments  of  her  departed 
little  one,  and  feel  grateful  to  God  for  having  taken  it  into  his  safer 
keeping  to  grow  up  among  the  angels  and  reach  the  fulness  of  its 
immortal  being  by  less  painful  processes  than  that  of  earth.  It  is  a 
grand  sight  that  of  a  venerable  father  bearing  patiently  and  hopefully 
the  death  of  a  son  whose  talents  and  virtues  were  the  praise  of  the 
neighborhood  or  the  country.  And  how  often  does  this  happen,  that 
one  whose  mathematical,  scientific,  artistic  or  literary  genius  gives 
promise  of  a  long  career  of  honor  to  himself  and  happiness  to  all  con- 
nected with  him  is  suddenly  and  mysteriously  stricken  down  by 
fatal  illness,  which  surprises  the  physician  not  less  than  the  patient 
himself  and  those  around  him  !  O  what  a  calm  and  happy  thing  it 
is  to  feel,  as  one  looks  again  at  the  face  now  still  and  calm  in  death, 
that  the  closed  eyes  of  affection  will  open  tenderly  upon  us  when  our 
own  journey  is  over  and  that  we  shall  meet  again  "  some  summer 
morning!" 

Such  a  hope  is  possible  to  all  of  us,  because  it  is  rational  and  in 
unison  with  the  best  feelings  and  yearnings  of  our  nature.  It  does 
not  require  any  dogma  or  logical  process  of  proof  It  is  a  feeling  so 
deep  in  our  nature  that  death  is  not  omnipotent  and  that  the  material 
body  cannot  extinguish  the  bright  and  beautiful  intelligence,  that  it 
is  found  a  much  harder  task  than  they  bargained  for  when  the  Infidel 


3(^^  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

annihilationist  tries  to  convert  commonplace  folks  into  the  belief  that 
human  affections  are  only  animal  weaknesses,  and  that  the  love  of 
parent  to  child  is  only  that  of  the  tiger  or  bear  for  its  cubs.  The 
divine  light  within  us,  no  matter  whether  we  be  of  this  church  or  of 
that,  or  of  U'O  church  at  all,  burns  up  at  this  dark  and  desolate  ma- 
terialism, and  answers  calmly  that  if  there  be  any  immaterial  principle 
in  man  at  all,  his  best  affections  are  not  thus  absolutely  in  the  despotic 
power  of  matter.  Many  a  lonely  traveller  on  the  road  of  life  has  gone 
through  thirty  or  forty  years,  singing  and  making  melody  in  the  heart 
all  the  time,  in  the  full  faith  and  happy  consciousness  that  the  child 
or  parent,  the  brother  or  sister  they  lost  long  years  ago  is  still  walk- 
ing silently  beside  them  and  holding  them  by  the  hand.  A  faith  so 
pure  and  beautiful  cannot  be  false. 

The  ceremonies  and  all  the  attendant  memories  of  death  should 
symbolize  this  faith.  Instead  of  the  "dark  vault,  there  should  be  the 
green  glades  and  the  bright  sunshine  for  the  dead.  Instead  of  a  dark 
and  narrow  house,  there  should  be  the  happy  valley,  the  spreading 
landscape,  the  groves  and  trees,  the  smooth-flowing  river,  the  merry 
peals  of  bells  floating  over  hill  and  dale,  and  the  melody  of  birds 
carolling  their  praises  of  life,  not  death.  Instead  of  a  year's  mourn- 
ing, there  should  be  some  little  mark  of  bereavement  as  a  social  token 
to  one's  neighborhood  that  we  have  a  vacant  chair  in  the  household, 
and  then  the  trappings  of  grief  should  give  place  to  the  ordinary 
work-day  costume,  the  memento  being  still  worn,  as  a  forget-me-not 
for  the  absent  one  and  a  reminder  to  the  wearer  that  a  dear  one 
who  has  gone  up  higher  is  now  looking  with  the  deepest  interest 
and  sympathy  upon  our  life-work.  Each  anniversary  of  the  beloved 
one's  death  should  be  kept  as  the  birthday  of  his  true  life.  Instead 
of  selfishly  repining  that  he  has  not  shared  our  sufferings  and  sick- 
nesses, we  ought  rather  to  thank  Heaven  that  the  one  we  cherished 
more  than  our  own  life  has  been  spared  the  bitter  winds  and  raging 
tempest,  and  has  been  sleeping  in  the  quiet  haven  of  the  heavenly  rest 
while  our  raft  of  life  has  tossed  and  staggered  on  the  stormy  seas. 

As  the  world   grows  better,  and  we  do  not  believe,  in  spite  of  all 


DEATH    IX    THE    HOME.  369 

the  pessimists  and  moral  dyspeptics,  that  it  is  growing  worse,  one  of 
the  signs  of  a  noble  and  true  manhood  and  womanhood  will  be  the 
victory  over  the  superstition  about  death  and  the  calm  acquiescence 
in  it  as  a  note  in  the  divine  harmony  and  a  beneficent  release  from 
a  service  of  labor  and  suffering  too  heavy  for  the  invalid  to  bear.  In 
the  garden  of  the  Lord,  as  the  old  divines  are  fond  of  calling  the 
scene  where  spiritual  flowers  are  grown  and  tended,  there  are  works 
of  hard  toil,  digging,  uprooting  and  planting;  but  on  the  higher  bank 
to  which  death  carries  us  there  is  a  sweeter  gardening  toil,  which  is 
indeed  no  toil  at  all,  but  a  perpetual  happiness.  There  are  stray 
flowers  of  human  thought  and  aspiration,  scattered  prayers  and  hopes 
which  have  been  blown  from  the  tree  of  life,  which  must  be  gathered 
up  by  hands  etherealized  by  death  and  woven  into  immortal  garlands 
that  shall  distil  fragrance  in  the  presence  of  God  through  the  eternal 
Present  of  Eternity.  May  not  dear  baby's  tiny  fingers  be  twined 
about  those  scattered  flowers,  and  the  sweet  lips  that  here  could 
scarcely  lisp  "  mamma  "  or  "  papa  "  have  learned  in  that  bright  home 
the  spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  it  cries  with  full  melodious  note,  "Abba, 
Father!"  May  not  the  gifted  brother,  of  whom  we  were  so  proud, 
have  graduated  there  in  higher  studies,  painted  grander  scenes, 
or  composed  sublimer  symphonies  ?  The  patient  wife,  who  toiled 
and  sometimes  wept  in  silent  suffering  during  her  brief  companion- 
ship with  a  coarser  though  an  honest  mind,  may  be  inspiring  softer 
thoughts  and  holier  feelings  into  the  husband  who  walks  with  head 
bowed  down  and  weary  feet  without  her.  The  home  of  which 
I  have  written  in  this  book  would  be,  indeed,  imperfect  if  with 
its  nursery  and  parlors,  its  library  and  kitchen,  it  had  not  a  minaret 
or  observator>'  touching  the  blue  sky,  from  which  we  could  take  hold 
sometimes  of  the  hands  reached  down  to  us  from  heaven.  Let  us 
be  sure  that  however  great  a  mystery  death  is,  the  pure  love  of  the 
heart  can  never  die,  and  that  though  the  stars  may  fade  with  weari- 
ness from  too  long  a  vigil  in  the  sky,  the  heart  of  the  child  will  still 
turn  to  its  mother  and  nestle  to  her  breast,  and  that  in  heaven's 
nursery  it  will  sit  waiting  patiently  until  "mamma"  comes  home. 
24 


HOME  ARCHITECTUl^E. 


iHE  desire  to  build  a  house  for  our  own  home  and  that 
of  our  family  is  a  noble  and  humane  ambition.  It 
needs  capital  to  do  it,  and  capital  is  what  the  vast 
majority  of  human  beings  do  not  possess.  The  plan 
of  gaining  a  freehold  of  property,  little  by  little,  as 
Israel  of  old  gained  possession  of  Canaan,  is,  however,  becoming 
general  everywhere,  and  is  one  of  the  progressive  social  aspects  of 
the  age  and  country  in  which  we  live.  So  much  is  this  the  case  that 
both  the  United  States  government,  the  legislatures  of  single  States, 
and  many  wealthy  corporations  formed  by  capitalists  are  either  giv- 
ing grants  of  land  in  sections  of  the  country  that  need  population 
and  industry,  or  are  selling  them  on  the  terms  of  easy  periodical 
payments. 

The  great  question,  however,  and  one  which  is  not  sufficiently  con- 
sidered by  the  prospective  settler  and  house  builder,  is  whether  the 
plot  of  land  is  worth  building  upon,  and  whether  its  sanitary  condi- 
tions make  it  desirable  for.  a  habitation.  Many  have  built  a  tomb 
when  they  thought  they  were  building  a  house.  Instead  of  a  home 
to  live  in,  they  have  made  a  miniature  hospital  for  themselves  and 
their  children  to  fall  sick  and  die  in.  Bad  drainage,  stagnant  water, 
whose  poisonous  exhalations  and  moisture  have  saturated  the  soil 
upon  which  the  pretty  house  is  built,  have  caused  typhus  and  typhoid 
and  the  other  forms  of  hydra-headed  fever,  chills  and  shiverings, 
malaria  and  ague,  rheumatism,  sick  headaches  and  faintness,  loss  of 
appetite  and  strength,  diphtheria  and  pneumonia,  throat  troubles  and 
consumption.  Whole  families  have  died  off,  one  by  one,  though  the 
sky  above  them  has  been  clear  and  the  landscape  around  them  beauti- 
(370) 


HOME    ARCHITECTURE,  37 1 

ful,  because  they  have  built  their  dwelling  on  malarial  soil  and  pesti- 
lential marsh  land.  Beneath  the  ground  on  which  man  walks  there 
is  sometimes  hidden  wealth  in  veins  of  minerals,  and  there  is  some- 
times also  the  damp  and  poison  that  will  turn  the  little  paradise  into 
a  graveyard.  The  first  thing,  therefore,  is  to  dig  before  you  plant; 
to  know  thoroughly  the  nature  of  the  soil ;  to  remedy  all  defects  of 
drainage  if  you  can,  and  if  you  can't,  to  pitch  your  tent  elsewhere, 
although  land  agents  tell  you  it  is  the  finest  and  healthiest  spot  in 
creation  and  that  your  home  would  be  a  very  palace  of  Aladdin. 

Having  surveyed  your  land  and  explored  what  is  beneath  it,  and 
made  sure  that  it  will  be  an  abode  of  life,  not  death,  consider  next  its 
nearness  to  the  necessary  centres  of  social  life.  Unless  you  are  a 
farmer  you  cannot  make  your  house  a  depot  of  all  the  necessaries  of 
life,  although  there  is  immense  pleasure  in  amateur  farming,  in  making 
one's  own  butter  and  cheese,  keeping  poultry,  and  eating  home-made 
eggs  and  chickens  as  well  as  bread.  Country  life  is  very  delight- 
ful when  the  family  is  large  and  visits  to  and  from  relatit)ns  and  friends 
are  among  the  occasional  sensations,  but  if  Sydney  Smith,  when  lo- 
cated upon  Salisbury  Plain,  bewailed  his  isolation  from  the  centres 
of  civilization  in  being  "  four  miles  from  a  lemon,"  you  must  take 
care  that  you  do  not  find  yourself  ten  miles  from  a  post-office,  a 
church  or  a  library.  In  other  chapters  of  this  volume  I  have  given 
all  the  useful  advice  that  occurred  to  my  own  "  prospecting,"  as  to 
the  best  plans  for  making  home  as  complete  and  as  independent  of 
external  sources  of  supply  as  possible,  but,  unhappily,  the  cases  are 
too  frequent  all  over  the  country  of  persons  expending  a  great  deal 
of  pains  and  money  in  building  houses  only  to  vacate  them  after  a 
year's  disappointment  and  ennui  in  them,  to  make  it  superfluous  to 
advise  every  one  to  think  well  before  he  settles  in  a  spot  "  remote 
from  towns."  "  Distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view  "  when  one 
is  thinking  of  some  beautiful  villa,  "  far  from  the  madding  crowd," 
and  where  only  "  the  tinkling  sheep  bells  lull  the  distant  folds," 
but  when  the  cupboard  is  empty  and  there  is  neither  butcher  nor 
baker  within  reach,  and  the  coal  has  given  out,  and  the  rain  descends 


3/2  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

and  the  winds  blow,  and  the  postman  with  his  budget  of  newspapers 
is  buried  three  feet  deep  in  snow,  and  no  "  last  new  novel  "  is  beside 
us  to  keep  our  facial  muscles  in  exercise  by  its  insipidity,  then,  be- 
lieve me,  the  "gentle  hermit  of  the  dale"  and  his  wife  and  daughters 
are  apt  to  wish  themselves  back  again  at  the  old  number  of  the  old 
town  square  or  street. 

But  you  have  considered  all  these  antagonistic  possibilities  and 
you  are  about  to  build  a  house,  either  amid  the  mountains  and  lakes, 
the  tall  trees  and  green  glades  of  nature  or  in  the  suburbs  of  a  town, 
as  the  choice  may  be.  And  now  you  must  thoroughly  settle  in 
your  own  mind  precisely  the  kind  of  house  you  want,  what  the  style 
of  its  architecture,  what  its  internal  arrangements,  what  its  height, 
length  and  breadth,  the  number  and  size  of  the  rooms,  their  "  exits 
and  their  entrances,"  the  equipment  with  everything  needed  for  their 
special  purpose,  what  that  special  purpose  is  to  be,  whether  sewing- 
room,  dining-room,  drawing-room,  nursery,  kitchen  or  store-room. 
If  you  have  a  fkie  view  and  "  every  prospect  pleases,"  and  your  house 
is  to  be  high  enough,  by  all  means  have  a  room  above  all  others 
forming  a  tower  or  roof  rather  than  a  spire,  which  shall  be  in  sum- 
mer an  observatory  of  the  starry  heavens  by  night  and  of  the  familiar 
fields,  the  glades  and  valleys,  the  winding  river,  the  everlasting  hills, 
and  perhaps  the  far-spreading  and  resounding  sea  by  day.  Perhaps, 
one  reason  why  St.  Simeon  Stylites  lived  on  the  top  of  a  pillar  was 
to  be  nearer  the  sky.  Certainly  no  one  who  has  looked  out  on  an 
exhilarating  summer  morning  upon  the  sun-bathed  landscape  from 
the  top  of  a  high  house  can  have  failed  to  feel  that  the  delicious  air 
and  the  soul-inspiring  vision  made  him  feel  nearer  heaven,  if  heaven 
be  perfect  peace  and  hope  and  love. 

But  you  cannot  always  be  enjoying  the  outspread  splendors  of  the 
seas  and  mountains,  the  dales  and  rivulets,  nor  can  you  live  among 
the  heavenly  bodies.  There  are  earthly  bodies  to  be  thought  of  as 
well  as  heavenly,  and  there  is  a  science  of  gastronomy  as  well  as  of 
astronomy.  Now,  a  great  many  house  builders  spend  a  great  deal  of 
taste  and  art  and  money  upon  a  drawing-room  which  they  seldom 


HOME    ARCHITECTURE.  373 

enter,  whose  doors  are  locked  and  whose  furniture  is  covered,  while 
they  think  that  any  odd  corner,  so  it  be  near  the  water  supply  and 
the  fence,  will  do  for  a  kitchen.  A  vast  deal  of  discomfort  in  the 
house  arises  from  this  foolish  estimate  of  the  relative  uses  of  rooms 
and  the  spurious  preference  of  show  and  ornament  for  real  utility. 
Better  do  without  your  show  drawing-room  altogether,  if  your  house 
is  to  be  a  small  one,  and  be  content  with  a  real  good  dining-room, 
and  a  "  thorough  "  kitchen  with  everything  needed  for  physical  com- 
fort and  health  in  the  apparatus  of  cooking,  washing,  churning,  bread 
and  pie  making,  so  that  whether  your  family  and  guests  be  few  or 
many,  and  your  meals  simple  or  elaborate,  you  may  have  everything 
in  comfort,  and  your  cook  may  feel  the  kitchen  a  home  for  her  skill, 
not  a  box  in  which  she  can  do  nothing  properly  and  have  notliing 
in  order.  For  want  of  just  such  foresight  and  thorough  prearrange- 
ment  and  predestination  of  every  part,  many  villas  and  fine  houses 
have  been  built  by  wealthy  persons  which  have  afterward  been  called 
their  "  folly,"  for  the  want  of  prudence  and  good  sense  displayed  in 
them.  Sometimes  they  have  thought  that  so  long  as  the  building 
covered  a  big  area,  it  would  be  "just  the  thing."  So  they  have  con- 
structed what  looks  like  a  row  of  rooms  opening  into  each  other  by 
interminable  doors,  the  appearance  of  which  outside  is  like  a  row  of 
toy  cottages  strung  together,  and  the  feeling  of  which  inside  is  that 
one  is  occupying  no  room  in  particular,  but  is  passing  through  a 
suite,  as  a  conductor  passes  through  a  line  of  steam-cars  when  he 
takes  the  tickets.  It  is  really  extraordinary  the  way  in  which  some 
house  builders  rejoice  in  innumerable  doors,  while  they  seem  to  think 
that  closets  are  altogether  superfluous.  Their  idea  seems  to  be  that 
the  proper  feeling  on  entering  a  house  should  be  that  it  is  a  good 
house  to  get  out  of,  and  therefore  they  supply  the  facilities  for  "going 
in  at  one  door  and  out  at  the  other." 

The  subject  of  doors,  closets,  and  staircases  is  of  very  great  im- 
portance in  the  building  of  a  house.  Many  houses  have  doors  and 
staircases  made  like  traps  in  the  old  feudal  castles  in  which,  through 
a  trap-door,  an   undesirable  guest  went  down  impromptu  into  the 


374  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

moat  below  and  was  swept  away  on  the  seething  waters  of  a  "  lock." 
How  often  do  we  meet  with  persons  who  have  been  lamed  or  had 
concussion  of  the  brain  through  stepping  out  through  some  inviting 
side-door  either  into  mid-air  or  down  the  back  stairs  "  head  foremost ! " 
Sometimes  the  doors  are  so  promiscuous  and  plentiful  that  you  can- 
not open  one  door  without  its  coming  in  collision  with  another,  and 
then  you  have  to  keep  your  mind  in  a  continual  anxiety  lest  the  other 
door  should  not  be  shut  at  the  time  you  want  to  open  your  door. 
Perhaps,  the  other  door  is  a  closet  or  pantry  in  the  wrong  place  and 
the  children  or  the  servants  are  always  leaving  it  half  open,  and  when 
the  door  of  the  room  is  half  opened  the  two  strike  each  other,  and 
it  is  a  question  of  knobs  and  hinges  which  will  gracefully  recede  and 
allow  the  other  to  open  fully,  or  whether  they  shall  remain  "  locked 
in  each  other's  embrace,"  while  the  party  inside  one  door  and  the 
party  outside  the  other  door  exchange  compliments  with  each  other. 

There  are  many  things  pertaining  to  house  building  which  are 
proper  to  the  limited  understanding  of  man,  but  there  are  many 
more  things  in  which  the  mind  of  women  should  have  architectural 
and  mechanical  jurisdiction.  The  matter  of  closets  is  one  for 
feminine  arbitration.  A  man's  imagination  in  this  department  of 
domestic  science  does  not  extend  further  than  the  hat-rack  upon 
which  he  hangs  his  ulster,  beaver  or  wide-awake,  and  the  umbrella- 
stand  in  which  he  deposits  his  gingham  or  walking-stick.  But  a 
woman  knows  that  life  without  closet-room  is  life  without  order,  and 
that  home  without  plenty  of  storage  room  and  pegs  and  shelves  is 
chaos,  confusion,  and  endless  loss  of  time  and  goods.  "A  place  for 
everything  and  everything  in  its  place,"  is  only  a  proverb  expressive 
of  the  need  of  closet-room. 

A  bright  and  happy  future  for  the  horrfe  will  one  day  undoubtedly 
be  given  us  by  science,  art  and  human  perseverance,  which  shall 
make  every  house  fireproof,  and  enable  every  one  to  sleep  soundly 
without  dread  of  being  burned  alive.  As  it  is,  if  the  desire  of  most 
house  builders  had  been  to  provide  an  easy  road  for  fire  to  travel 
upward  and  downward  and  sideways  and  all  around,  they  could  not 


HOME    ARCHITECTURE.  375 

have  accomplished  it  more  successfully.     Already  the  minds  of  our 
first  architects   are   occupied  with   the   grand  life-saving  problem  of 
how  to  check  a  fire  when  it  has  been  started  by  non-conducting  de- 
vices between  rooms,  ceilings,  floors  and  stairways.     When  that  is 
once  accomplished,  as  it  will  be,  there  will  be  no  need  of  fire  insur- 
ance companies.     Moreover,  the  whole  subject  of  house  heating  will 
be  exhaustively  considered  and  made  the  subject  of  prize  essays  and 
practical  experiments  until  the  evils  of  the  stove,  the  range,  the  grate, 
the  steam-pipes,  the  dry  heat  from  furnaces,  are  all  modified  and  cured 
and  an  equal  temperature,  without  the  infliction  of  gas  from  coal,  or 
smoke,  or  excess  and  defect  of  warmth  in  one  part  of  the  house  and 
another,  will   be   diffused  in  dwelling-houses.      To  the   present  in- 
equality of  temperature  in   houses   one-half  of  the  throat  and  lung 
complaints  so  prevalent  among  Americans  are  traceable.    Our  climate 
is  not  like  that  of  the  West  Indies,  where  one  lives  with  open  doors  all 
the  year  round,  or  even  some  parts  of  the  United  States,  as  Southern 
California,  Florida  and  the   Southern  States,  where  nature  does  the 
greater  part  of  the  warming  process  for  her  human  children.     In  the 
North,  persons  pass  from  the  cold  of  a  sharp  winter's  day  out  of  doors 
to    rooms  in   which  the  air  is  often  "parched"  with    dry  heat,   or 
"steamed"  like  a  Russian  bath,  or  close  with  gas  and  smoke,  and  then 
there  is  wonder  at  the  dry  cough  that  becomes  chronic  with  them. 
It  is  bad  to  sleep  in  a  hot  room,  but  it  is  worse  still  to  sleep  in  an  in- 
tensely cold  bed-room  without  any  means  of  heating,  when  we  are 
flushed  and  the  pores  of  our  skin  are  open  by  the  heat  of  an  over- 
warm  sitting-room. 

All  these  questions  belong  to  the  building  of  a  house,  and  should 
be  well  considered  before  the  building  of  it  is  commenced.  Health 
before  ease,  utility  before  ornament,  comfort  before  luxury',  arc  the 
fundamental  principles  which  should  guide  the  house  builder.  Let 
him  look  to  these  and  secure  perfect  interior  comfort  and  convenience, 
and  ornament  and  decoration  will  come  afterward.  Some  people  be- 
gin all  their  enterprises  at  the  wrong  end  and  waste  half  their  lives  in 
trying  to   get    perfection   out   of  a  bad    design.      No   supplemental 


376  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

building  of  extra  rooms  ever  compensates  for  blunders  in  the  main 
edifice. 

For  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  intending  to  build  houses  of  their 
own,  the  following  designs  and  descriptions  have  been  specially 
prepared  and  are  offered  to  readers  of  "  The  Hearthstone  :  " 

This  design  (No.  i)  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  effect  possible  to  be 
attained  by  the  use  of  a  few  bold  lines  and  projections  with  but  very 
little  conventional  detail. 

The  roof  of  the  original  front  building  was  destroyed  by  fire,  leaving 
the  walls  intact.  The  problem  was,  to  restore  the  essential  loss,  to 
make  a  bolder  picture  than  the  old  one,  and,  if  possible,  at  the  same 
time  to  avoid  an  extraordinary  expense.  This  was  attempted  without 
altering  the  ground  lines  or  the  old  wall  openings. 

An  entirely  new  roof  treatment  was  adopted ;  one  result  is,  excellent 
rooms  in  the  third  story,  and  another  an  external  effect  which  was  a 
surprise  as  well  as  a  pleasure  to  all  interested. 

The  roof  covering  is  of  red  and  black  slates,  and  the  walls  were 
painted  to  harmonize,  so  that  the  color  emphasizes  the  effect  of  light 
and  shade.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  do  full  justice,  in  an  engraving 
in  black  and  white,  to  this  combination  of  light,  shade,  color  and 
outline.     Cost,  ^0,000. 

The  design  of  the  house  illustrated  by  this  drawing  (No.  2)  was  pre- 
pared at  the  instance  of  a  capitalist  in  the  western  part  of  Pennsylva- 
nia, who  wishes  to  improve  an  eligible  tract  of  land  near  a  large  city. 

It  is  his  hope  to  build  a  number  of  such  houses  to  rent  to  families 
of  moderate  income,  whose  business  will  permit  them  to  pay  ^400 
or  ^500  rental  per  annum. 

The  location  is  such  as  to  require  the  entrance  to  face  to  the 
northwest,  which  accounts  for  the  somewhat  peculiar  arrangement 
of  the  kitchen  wing. 

The  suggestion  to  build  the  first  story  of  brick  or  stone  comes 
from  the  prevailing  feeling  in  every  architect's  mind  which  leads  him 
to  avoid  the  use  of  wood  near  the  ground.  It  must  be  admitted  that 
wood  is  the  cheaper. 


DESIGN  No.  I. 


iiiii 


DESIGN   No.   3. 


w 

1/3 
C 

o 


o 

G 


HOME    ARCHITECTURE.  389 

The  bricks  should  be  laid  with  red  mortar.  The  sides  of  second 
story  and  gables  are  to  be  covered  with  wooden  shingles  and  the 
roofs  with  slate,  and  the  whole  of  the  wood-wook  painted  in  deep 
but  quiet  colors. 

The  interior  should  be  simply  finished  with  white  pine,  very  neatly 
wrought  and  fitted,  and  then  coated  with  shellac  so  as  to  display  the 
natural  color  and  grain  of  the  wood. 

A  bit  of  tinted  glass  in  the  stair-windows,  the  hall  floor  smoothed 
and  wax-varnished  for  a  rug,  two  pretty  little  fireplaces  with  wood 
mantels,  some  neat  little  wooden  cornice  mouldings,  some  quiet  tints 
on  the  walls,  and  then  we  must  leave  the  rest  to  the  good  lady  who 
comes  along  after  us  to  put  the  soul  of  home  into  the  somewhat 
chilly  shell  that  the  architect  leaves. 

No.  3  is  a  brick  residence  with  stone  dressings.  The  tower  over 
the  front  entrance,  the  balcony  over  front  bay-window,  with  round, 
coupled  columns  supporting  the  eave,  the  portico  over  front  door 
with  coupled  round  columns  and  broken  curved  pediment,  are  a 
beautiful  combination  and  are  entirely  new. 

The  novel  feature  of  the  interior  is  the  arrangement  of  the  parlor 
and  dining-room.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  doors  are  at  the  corner, 
while  in  the  corners  opposite  are  two  fireplaces.  By  this  arrange- 
ment a  proper  space  is  afforded  for  a  piano  in  the  parlor,  and  a  buffet 
in  the  dining-room  opposite  the  bay-window.  The  pantry  is  between 
the  dining-room  and  kitchen,  serving  in  a  measure  to  exclude  the 
smells  of  cooking. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  hall  arc  the  dining-room  and  library. 
This  arrangement  was  designed  to  accommodate  a  clergyman.  A 
much  better  arrangement  would  be  to  use  the  entire  space  for  a 
drawing-room,  and  moving  the  bay-window  to  the  centre  of  the  long 
side. 

The  servants'  hall  connects  by  a  door  with  the  front  hall ;  it  also 
has  an  outside  door. 

In  the  second  story  are  four  large  and  one  small  room  and  a  ser- 
vants' room,  all  with  large  presses. 


(390) 


PLAN  OF  DESIGN  No.  i. 


HOME    ARCHITECTURE.  39I 

The  bath  is  arranged  at  the  end  of  the  servants'  hall. 

By  making  the  house  a  little  higher,  four  very  good  rooms  can  be 
made  in  the  attic  with  windows,  as  shown  in  the  gables,  only  larger. 
Dormer  windows  would  add  both  to  comfort  and  appearance. 

The  laundry  and  furnace  rooms  are  in  the  basement.  The  sides 
of  this  house  are  more  commanding  than  the  front.  A  slate  roof  in 
variegated  colors  would  improve  the  appearance.  This  house,  with 
slight  alterations,  can  be  built  of  wood.  It  is  to  be  erected  in  southern 
Texas. 

No.  4  is  a  small  cottage  built  at  Ogden,  Utah.  It  has,  in  addition, 
a  kitchen ;  the  room  marked  kitchen  on  this  plan  being  transformed 
into  a  dining-room.  This  addition  and  a  front  piazza  can  be  added 
whenever  the  circumstances  of  the  owner  will  admit  of  it. 

The  projecting  windows  can  be  made  of  a  single  plank  at  the  sides; 
they  will  add  to  the  room  as  well  as  appearance.  A  good  way  to 
build  this  is  to  make  a  balloon  frame,  cover  with  rough  hemlock 
boards,  sheathing  paper  and  clapboards.  The  roof  to  be  treated  in 
this  way  and  shingled ;  the  shingles  to  be  painted  in  two  colors ; 
the  natural  colors  of  slates  are  the  most  suitable  for  shingle  roofs. 

There  being  four  sleeping-rooms,  the  house  has  a  good  deal  of 
accommodation  for  one  that  can  be  built  for  a  less  sum  than  two 
thousand  dollars,  including  cellar. 

No.  5  is  a  small  cottage  built  at  Orangeburgh,  South  Carolina. 
It  contains  no  culinary  department,  that  being  in  a  separate  building, 
a  custom  prevalent  at  the  South. 

The  building  stands  on  posts  and  is  enclosed  at  the  outer  line  of 
the  piazza  with  close  open-work,  screening  the  unsightly  posts  and 
affording  ample  ventilation. 

The  gables  of  main  roof  arc  carried  out  to  form  porticos  at  cither 
end,  and  the  caves  arc  projected  to  form  a  piazza  on  cither  side. 
Both  arc  cut  away  at  each  angle,  but  the  floors  are  carried  around 
full  width.  There  is  no  other  arrangement  in  architecture  that  will 
afford  an  equal  amount  of  convenience  in  as  good  style  at  the  same 
cost. 


FIRST  STORy  PLAN. 


(392) 


PLAN  OF  DESIGN  No.  a. 


HOME    ARCHITECTURE.  393 

Balconies  can  be  added  to  second  sotry  windows  with  good  effect. 
The  interior  is  finished  throughout  with  the  natural  pine  of  that  lati- 
tude. The  blinds  are  inside ;  the  roof  of  shingles.  The  exterior 
and  roof  should  be  painted  sage  green,  with  light,  olive  dressing,  and 
black  and  vermilion  chamfers.  Do  not  undertake  the  latter  unless 
some  one  of  educated  taste  directs  it;  better  leave  them  off  entirely. 

With  slight  alterations  this  can  be  arranged  for  a  family  cottage  in 
the  North.  The  same  style  can  be  adopted  in  larger  houses,  dor- 
mers can  be  added,  and  a  very  commodious  and  pretentious  house 
built  for  a  comparatively  small  sum  of  money. 

No.  6  is  the  front  elevation  of  a  frame  church  and  parsonage, 
which  has  been  built  at  a  cost  of  ;^  15,000  on  Long  Island.  The 
style  of  the  buildings  is  such  as  to  give  a  marked  ecclesiastical 
effect,  although  the  treatment  is  very  free  to  suit  the  location  and  the 
material. 

The  outlines  are  picturesque,  but  much  of  the  pleasing  effect  of 
the  building  as  actually  erected  is  due  to  the  painter's  art  in  coloring 
in  deep  but  quiet  tones.  Such  a  design  could  be  totally  ruined  in 
the  painting.  It  is  therefore  of  the  highest  importance  in  wooden 
buildings  that  the  best  taste  should  be  consulted  in  this  part  of  the 
work. 

We  have  thus  given  six  designs,  which  will  fully  illustrate  all  that 
is  essential  or  necessary  to  those  who  may  contemplate  either  build- 
ing or  improving  their  homes,  and  it  may  be  that  some  one  of  these 
designs  will  answer  the  wishes  and  tastes  of  a  large  number  of  our 
readers. 

The  designs  cannot  fail  to  be  of  great  interest  to  any  who  will  care- 
fully examine  them,  and  be  highly  appreciated  as  showing  what  can 
be  done  in  the  line  of  utility,  beauty  and  attractiveness  without  in- 
volving the  builders  in  that  heavy  burden  which  so  many,  so  many 
American  homes  carry — mortgages  and  liens. 

We  are  very  much  indebted  to  two  well-known  architects  who  have 
kindly  made  these  designs  and  written  the  description  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  be  free  from  the  ambiguity  which   usually  belongs  to 


394  '    THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

plans  of  buildings.  Those  who  can  only  build  "air-castles"  and 
have  dreams  of  what  a  home  should  be,  will  find  in  these  practical 
designs  pleasing  suggestions  for  thought;  while  to  the  families  re- 
quiring and  preparing  to  build  houses,  they  can  but  be  of  value  and 
interest. 

Plans  No.  i   and  2  are  by  Mr.  Addison  Hutton,  of  Philadelphia, 
and  No.  3,  4,  5  and  6  are  by  Mr.  J.  A.  Wood,  of  New  York  city. 


THE  KITCHEN  IN  THE  HOME, 


y'J  HAT  food  is  to  the  body  the  kitchen  should  be  to  the 
home.  Indeed,  as  Brillat-Savarin  has  said,  "Tell  me 
what  you  eat,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  you  are;"  so 
one  may  say,  Show  me  the  kitchen,  and  I  can  form  a 
good  idea  of  the  home.  As  the  comfort  and  happi- 
ness of  home  do  not  depend  upon  vast  room  and 
costly  furniture,  and  there  is  often  far  more  peace  and  pleasure  in  a 
cottage  than  a  palace,  so  the  kitchen  need  not  be  a  vast  apartment  in 
which  many  cooks  are  preparing  many  dishes,  such  as  the  wealthy 
Roman  houses  of  two  thousand  years  ago  were  famous  for.  But  as 
every  human  life  depends  for  its  support  upon  food,  so  every  human 
home  must  have  a  kitchen  in  which  that  food  is  prepared.  The 
person  who  neglects  food  soon  gets  sick,  and  the  home  in  which  the 
kitchen  is  neglected  is  not  a  healthy  or  a  happy  home. 

It  is  strange  how  careless  some  housewives  are  in  this  matter. 
They  are  ever  so  particular  that  the  room  they  sit  in,  and  in  which 
they  receive  their  friends  on  state  occasions,  shall  be  spotlessly  neat 
and  comfortable,  but  they  treat  their  kitchen  as  if  it  were  a  mere 
lumber  room  upon  which  dusting  and  cleaning  and  taste  would  be 
thrown  away.  Yet  the  kitchen  ought  to  be  as  neat  and  clean  as  any 
room  in  the  house,  and  when  it  is  not  so,  it  is  a  sign  of  bad  manage- 
ment and  carelessness  about  meals.  Yet  meals  are  the  best  evidences 
of  a  well  or  ill  kept  home.  As  one  who  comes  to  the  table  with  un  - 
washed  hands  is  very  likely  to  have  also  a  dirty  face,  so  a  slovenly 
cloth,  ill-cooked  food,  broken  cups  and  saucers,  greasy  plates,  and  all 
things  huddled  together  anyhow  so  as  to  get  the  meal  over,  as  if  it 

(395) 


396  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

were  not  meant  to  afford  any  pleasure — these  are  sure  tokens  that 
the  home  is  not  what  it  ought  to  be. 

The  kitchen  fire  is  the  centre  of  warmth  to  the  home,  just  as  food 
renews  Hfe  and  warmth  to  the  body.  To  be  healthy  in  mind  and 
body  one  must  eat  wholesome  food.  Too  much  food  or  too  little ; 
food  that  is  indigestible  and  innutritions  in  itself  or  becomes  so 
through  bad  cooking ;  eating  when  one  is  not  hungry  because  it  is 
the  usual  hour  for  eating,  and  not  eating  when  one  is  really  hungry 
because  it  is  not  the  regular  hour,  are  all  causes  of  dyspepsia,  an  ail- 
ment that  destroys  sleep,  good  temper  and  pleasant  thinking.  An 
immense  number  of  persons  in  all  civilized  countries  suffer  from  this 
frightful  nightmare  of  the  stomach,  and  we  Americans  suffer  more 
than  any  other  people.  The  cause  of  this  is  not  in  any  difference  of 
constitution  and  the  organs  of  digestion.  It  is  caused  by  bad  cook- 
ing, hasty  eating,  without  using  our  teeth  sufficiently  upon  what  we 
eat,  thus  leaving  to  the  unfortunate  stomach  the  work  meant  for  the 
•teeth  and  jaws  as  well  as  its  own.  American  business  men  will  eat 
too  much  at  one  time,  and  then  go  too  long  a  time  without  eating  at 
all.  They  plead  that  they  have  been  too  busy  to  think  about  lunch 
or  dinner ;  that  they  were  occupied  with  a  big  sale  or  a  big  purchase. 
Then,  perhaps,  late  at  night,  when  the  stomach,  like  the  brain,  should 
not  be  called  upon  to  do  hard  work,  they  cram  down  hunches  of  new 
bread  and  slices  of  cheese  and  butter,  with  perhaps  a  glass  of  milk 
and  some  pickles  with  vinegar  to  turn  the  whole  sour,  and  then  they 
get  up  in  the  night  and  rave  and  tear  their  hair  and  wonder  what 
is  the  matter  with  them,  and  why  they  cannot  get  a  wink  of 
sleep.  Next  morning  they  feel  bad  and  drink  mineral  waters  before 
breakfast,  thus  further  injuring  the  coats  of  the  stomach,  and  they 
go  through  the  day  feeling  that  they  are  very  badly  used,  and  accus- 
ing every  smiling  face  they  meet  of  mocking  at  their  misery,  and 
wishing  some  one  would  only  quarrel  with  them  so  as  to  give  them 
an  opportunity  of  speaking  their  mind  and  relieving  their  ill  humor. 
The  druggist  tells  them  that  they  are  utterly  out  of  sorts,  recommends 
a  tonic,  a  nervine,  a  foot-bath  of  water  as  hot  as  they  can  bear  it  to 


THE    KITCHEN    IN    THE    HOME.  397 

draw  the  fever  from  the  head ;  a  mustard-plaster  for  the  pit  of  the 
stomach,  six  cathartic  liver  pills  to  be  taken  at  night  and  a  horrid 
black  draught  to  be  drunk  in  the  morning,  and  the  poor  man  fancies 
he  must  be  better  and  eats  a  pocketful  of  hard  nuts,  several  unripe 
peaches,  a  clam-chowder  or  a  dish  of  pork  and  beans,  and  then  says 
the  druggist  is  a  fraud  and  medicine  a  humbug,  and  that  life  is  not 
worth  living,  and  wishes  he  were  dead.  Women  vary  this  programme 
by  pots  of  green  tea,  candies  and  heavy  cake,  or  hot  bread,  with  ice- 
cream and  lemonade  and  any  other  irrecohcilables  they  can  get  hold 
of  Their  children  follow  their  example,  and  then  wonder  why  their 
teeth  decay  and  they  feel  so  cross  and  uncomfortable  and  grow  so 
sallow  in  complexion.  Meanwhile,  the  pastry  cook,  confectioner, 
fruiterer,  druggist  and  undertaker  make  a  good  profit  out  of  the  bodies 
they  thus  abuse ;  and  when  the  family  doctor  is  called  in  and  writes 
his  prescription  he  knows  very  well  that  it  will  bs  of  no  service  until 
they  change  their  mode  of  living,  which  is  just  what  they  will 
not  do. 

It  is  the  kitchen  in  the  home,  not  the  doctor,  that  can  remedy 
these  ills.  Plain,  wholesome,  nourishing  food,  made  pleasant  to  the 
appetite  by  good  cooking,  will  do  more  than  drugs  and  doctors  to 
set  these  groaning  dyspeptics  right.  But  the  good  food  is  too  often 
spoiled  by  the  bad  cooking,  and  some  cooks  seem  almost  to  take 
pains  to  cook  badly.  It  is  just  as  easy  and  just  as  difficult  to  do  a 
thing  the  right  way  as  to  do  it  the  wrong  way,  yet  to  hear  some' 
people  talk  about  cooking  one  would  think  it  required  a  lifetime  to 
learn  how  to  cook  a  steak  or  boil  a  potato.  Of  course,  there  is  some 
art  required  even  in  the  simplest  piece  of  work.  To  boil  an  egg  so 
that  it  be  neither  a  lukewarm  fluid  nor  a  hard  and  flavorless  ball  is 
difficult,  because  it  is  difficult  to  keep  one's  attention  fixed  for  four  min- 
utes upon  a  given  process,  but  it  is  easy  if  one  fi.xes  one's  mind  upon 
the  clock  and  the  boiling  water.  The  number  of  those,  however,  who 
can  really  be  trusted  to  boil  an  egg  is  surprisingly  f:w.  Most  people 
are  like  King  Alfred  the  Great  who  promised  to  mind  the  cakes  on 
the  fire,  but  forgot  all  about  them,  and  very  justly  got  his  ears  boxed 
25 


39S  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

by  the  housewife  for  letting  her  food  spoil.  To  watch  any  object 
with  undivided  attention,  even  for  a  few  minutes,  is  with  the  majority 
of  persons  a  feat  as  difficult  as  the  fabulous  apple-shooting  of  William 
Tell.  The  mere  consciousness  that  one  has  to  do  a  thing  prevents 
one's  doing  it.  Those  who  doubt  this  have  only  to  try  to  look  into 
another  person's  eyes  without  moving  a  muscle,  or  laughing,  wink- 
ing or  wavering  for  five  minutes.  Nine  persons  out  of  ten  will  fail, 
and  they  will  fail  because  of  the  double  process  of  attention  and  con- 
sciousness of  attention.  The  conscious  effort  makes  the  failure.  They 
could  do  the  same  thing  for  a  much  longer  time  if  they  were  not 
trying  to  do  it. 

So  with  cooking:  it  is  an  easy  thing  to  cook  well,  but  it  needs 
attention  and  pains,  which  few  busy  housewives  or  servants  are  will- 
ing to  take.  The  joint  may  be  only  the  ancient  leg  of  mutton  or  rib 
of  beef,  but  it  needa  frequent  turning  of  position  toward  the  fire  that 
it  may  get  equally  roasted,  and  it  needs  frequent  basting  so  that  it 
may  be  brown  and  juicy.  So,  also,  with  making  and  baking  a 
loaf  of  bread.  It  costs  as  much  time  and  trouble  to  do  it  wrong  and 
make  it  like  a  leaden  lump,  or  to  make  it  that  most  delicious  of  all 
bread  food,  far  surpassing  the  richest  cake,  a  perfect  home-made 
cottage  loaf  with  a  "  kissing  crust,"  as  children  call  it  in  some  parts 
of  the  country. 

If  one  is  a  thoroughly  bad  cook,  as  so  many  who  profess 
to  cook  are,  he  or  she  should  never  attempt  a  perfectly  simple 
dish,  such  as  a  roast  joint  or  a  broiled  steak.  These  are  too 
easily  spoiled  to  bear  any  trifling.  But  let  the  bad  cook  confine 
him  or  herself  to  "  made  dishes,"  as  they  are  called,  in  which  the 
cook's  hand  is  a  hidden  hand,  and  all  sorts  of  flavorings  disguise 
the  maltreated  meat.  The  Frenchman  can  serve  you  a  dish  of  roast 
beef  from  the  loins  of  a  Paris  cab-horse  "  retired  from  business,"  and 
"a  donkey  what  wouldn't  go"  made  into  a  curry  will  pass  for  venison. 
Many  of  my  readers  have  heard  the  story  of  the  Englishman  who  was 
travelling  in  China  and  who  entered  a  restaurant  to  allay  his  hunger. 
Unfortunately  the  attendant,  John  Chinaman,  knew  no  English,  nor 


THE    KITCHEN    IN    THE    HOME. 


399 


did  the  Englishman  talk  Chinese.  He  signified  by  raps  upon  his 
gastronomic  region  and  a  movement  of  the  jaws  which  conveyed  the 
idea  of  eating  and  being  hungry  that  he  wanted  some  dinner.  When 
it  was  set  before  him  he  "  fell  to  "  with  an  appetite  and  thought  it 
the  most  delicious  dish  he  had  ever  partaken  of.  Eager  to  know 
what  he  was  eating,  but  not  knowing  how  to  make  himself  under- 
stood, he  said  to  the  Chinaman  :  "  Quack,  quacrk,"  meaning,  "  Is  this 
duck  ?  "  for  it  tasted  so  to  him.  The  Chinaman  gravely  shook  his 
head  and  replied  :  "  Bow,  wow,"  thus  conveying  to  his  hungry  cus- 
tomer the  fact  that  it  was  dog.  Such  is  the  disguising  power  of  made 
gravy  and  sauces. 

The  old  philosopher  of  Athens  who  had  the  very  cross  wife  used 
to  make  a  rule  when  he  went  out  to  dinner — for  it  is  very  doubtful 
if  he  ever  got  any  dinner  at  home — of  never  eating  of  more  than  one 
dish,  and  never  taking  sauce  with  it.  He  used  to  say,  that  to  need 
sauce  with  one's  meat  implied  that  the  cook  did  not  know  his  busi- 
ness, and  that  it  was  better  to  confine  one's  self  to  one  dish,  and  not 
use  one's  self  to  luxuries,  so  that  if  the  day  of  poverty  came  and  one 
could  not  procure  them  he  would  not  feel  the  want  of  them.  Many 
wise  men  beside  Socrates  have  preferred  simple  fare.  It  is  said  of 
old  King  George  the  Third  that  he  always  dined  in  the  middle  of  the 
day,  and  that  often  in  his  walks  about  Windsor  he  would  step  into 
some  cottage  and  partake  of  an  apple-dumpling,  and  enjoy  it  far  more 
than  anything  the  cooks  of  castle  and  palace  prepared  for  him.  That 
poor  old  king  was  happier  in  this  respect  than  his  son  George  the 
Fourth,  who,  when  he  was  Prince-Regent,  was  accosted  by  a  beggar 
who  said  he  was  famished  with  hunger.  "Then  I  envy  you,"  said 
the  prince,  "  for  hunger  is  a  luxury  I  have  never  enjoyed."  One  who 
gorged  himself  constantly  as  he  did  might  well  say  so,  for  he  could 
have  no  real  appetite  or  enjoyment  of  his  surfeits. 

It  is  said  that  at  the  wedding  of  Charles  the  Sixth,  of  France,  a 
skilful  cook  covered  the  great  marble  table  of  the  royal  palace  with 
a  hundred  dishes  prepared  in  a  hundred  different  ways.  Who  would 
wish  to  have  been  there  any  more  than  at  a  banquet  of  Vitcllius  or 


400  THE    hearthstone;    or,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

Apicius  ?  Yet  there  is  an  extreme  the  other  way.  An  old  vege- 
tarian once  declared  that  he  desired  nothing  for  his  eating  except  the 
garbage  of  the  market-place.  One  might  as  well  be  Nebuchadnezzar 
at  once  and  go  grazing  among  the  beasts  of  the  field.  But  too  much 
animal  food  dulls  the  mind  and  clogs  the  blood  and  is  not  healthy, 
especially  for  the  young.  There  is  a  medium  between  the  diet  of 
Friar  Tuck  sAid  that  of  Edwin,  the  "  gentle  hermit  of  the  dale,"  who 
tells  his  long-lost  Angelina: 

"  No  flocks  that  range  the  valley  free 

To  slaughter  I  condemn ; 
Taught  by  that  Power  that  pities  me, 

I  learn  to  pity  them  : 
But  from  the  mountain's  grassy  side 

A  guiltless  feast  I  bring ; 
A  scrip  with  herbs  and  fruits  supplied, 

And  water  from  the  spring." 

"  What  is  one  man's  meat  is  another  man's  poison,"  is  a  true 
proverb.  People  differ  in  their  food  according  to  their  health  and 
appetite,  as  well  as  the  climate  they  live  in.  In  cold  climates  oil  and 
fat  are  used  in  quantities  which  would  be  revolting  in  other  latitudes. 
In  Russia  they  pour  train-oil  over  pies  to  make  them  more  palatable 
and  nutritious.  It  is  related  that  Sir  John  Franklin  when  in  the 
northern  seas  was  horrified  at  seeing  an  Esquimau  lad  consume 
fourteen  pounds  of  tallow  candles  for  his  dinner,  and  he  would  have 
eaten  more  if  Sir  John  had  not  appeased  his  appetite  with  a  huge 
lump  of  fat  pork. 

Even  in  the  same  climate,  however,  men  differ  widely  in  their  eat- 
ing and  drinking.  Milk,  the  simplest  and  most  nourishing  of  all  food, 
does  not  agree  with  persons  of  a  bilious  habit.  Some  persons,  for  the 
same  reason,  cannot  eat  eggs  with  impunity.  While  many  in  our 
own  country  are  very  fond  of  fried  and  greasy  meat,  others  require  it 
to  be  broiled  over  a  clear  fire  and  free  from  grease.  The  frying-pan 
certainly  fries  the  grease  into  and  the  flavor  and  juice  out  of  the  meat. 
Fried  oysters,  which  are  a  favorite  dish  with  many,  produce  great 
discomfort  and  indigestion  with  others. 


THE    KITCHEN    IN    THE    HOME.  4OI 

Cooking  utensils  were  generally  much  the  same  in  ancient  times 
and  nations  as  in  our  own.  The  remains  of  an  ancient  cooking-stove 
at  Pompeii  contained  a  strainer,  a  stock-pot,  a  brazier  by  which,  with 
a  tripod  placed  upon  it,  food  could  be  boiled,  stewed,  or  fried.  There 
was  also  a  frying-pan  with  four  circular  holes  in  it  which  were  prob- 
ably for  cooking  eggs. 

In  choosing  one's  food,  every  one  ought  to  bear  in  mind  the  kind 
of  labor,  physical  and  mental,  which  he  has  to  perform.  The  Chinese, 
who  live  chiefly  upon  rice,  are  very  industrious,  but  their  physical 
strength  gives  way  under  labor  which  is  easily  performed  by  Americans 
and  Europeans  who  eat  meat. 

There  are  so  many  excellent  manuals  on  the  chemistry  of  food 
that  any  one  can  readily  learn  the  relative  amount  of  nutriment 
contained  in  every  kind  of  food.  While  rice  affords  very  little 
nourishment,  oatmeal  is  an  excellent  "  stand  by,"  especially  for  brain 
workers. 

Let  the  kitchen  be  a  central  attraction  of  your  home  by  its  cleanli- 
ness and  the  excellence  of  your  cooking.  Nature  intended  man  to 
enjoy  his  food  as  well  as  to  keep  himself  alive  by  it.  The  simplest 
fare  daintily  spread  before  one  is  far  more  appetizing  than  a  feast  of 
all  sorts  of  mixtures,  just  as  a  plain  suit  of  clothes,  perfectly  neat  and 
tidy,  looks  better  than  costly  raiment  bespattered  with  dirt.  A  good, 
wholesome  table  inspires  the  mind  with  a  grateful  sense  of  order  and 
domestic  art  and  leads  to  pleasant  conversation,  personal  neatness  and 
social  enjoyment.  When  Talleyrand  gave  a  grand  dinner  a  fat  French 
bishop  sat  next  to  him  who  was  notorious  for  his  gluttony,  and  al- 
ways carried  his  own  man-servant  along  with  him  when  he  dined  out, 
so  that  he  might  hand  him  what  he  knew  to  be  his  favorite  dishes. 
After  eating  very  largely  on  this  occasion  his  eye  caught  sight  of 
some  dainty  side-dish  which  he  was  not  familiar  with,  and  he  desired 
his  servant  to  get  him  some  of  it.  He  had  his  mouth  open  to  swallow 
the  last  mouthful  when  he  fell  back  dead  in  his  chair,  and  the  horri- 
fied guests  all  got  up  from  the  dinner-table.  Who  would  prefer  to 
fare  sumptuously  all  one's  life,  as  he  had  done,  and  then  die  of  over- 


402  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

eating,  to  living  moderately  upon  natural  and  healthy  food,  with  a 
clean  palate,  a  sound  liver,  a  good  digestion,  and  an  unclouded 
brain  ? 

Some  housewives  display  admirable  skill  in  preparing  tempting 
dishes  at  very  little  cost.  This  has  not  as  yet  been  a  frequent  accom- 
plishment among  American  women.  There  is,  however,  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  be.  They  have  excelled  in  needlework  and  many 
other  kinds  of  domestic  art.  Why  should  not  the  American  kitchen 
be  as  famous  for  the  skill  and  delicacy  displayed  in  it  as  the  French, 
which  is  the  best,  taking  its  variety  and  economy  into  consideration? 
The  English  kitchen  is  good,  but  is  too  solid  for  our  climate  and  has 
very  little  variety.  But  in  their  deep  dish  fruit  pies  they  are  cer- 
tainly ahead  of  our  American  pies,  which  are  masses  of  paste  with 
just  a  little  fruit  from  which  all  the  juice  has  escaped.  The  German 
kitchen  is  even  more  solid  than  the  English,  and  is  too  greasy  for 
Americans.  The  Italians  excel  in  some  dishes,  but  their  roast  meats 
are  oily  and  flavorless.  Cookery  books  are  too  often  like  guide- 
books, which  take  you  by  a  round-about  way  to  where  you  did  not 
want  to  go.  The  best  teacher  in  the  kitchen  is  experience,  and  ex- 
perience is  learned  by  experiment.  If  one  begins  right,  "  practice 
makes  perfect "  in  the  kitchen  as  everywhere  else. 


COOKERY  I|ECIPES. 

SOUPS. 

HERE  is  no  more  fruitful  source  of  family  discontent 
than  poor  cooking,  and  progress  has  not  marked  the 
department  of  the  cook  as  it  has  other  branches  of 
home  life.  Cookery-books  are  numerous  ;  they  multi- 
ply continually,  yet  practical  recipes  are  scarce,  and 
true  and  tried  ones  are  a  commodity  much  in  demand. 

Whatever  may  have  been  said  on  the  subject  to  the  contrary,  it  is 
a  fact  that  women  desire  to  cook  well,  and  they  are  ever  on  the  look- 
out for  reliable  information  on  the  subject.  Housekeepers  cannot 
rely  upon  servants,  and  the  inevitable  result  is,  and  has  been,  that 
they  are  compelled  to  inform  themselves  regarding  the  duties  of  a 
cook. 

The  accompanying  recipes  are  intended  for  the  women  of  the  land 
who  appreciate  the  importance  of  a  practical  knowledge  of  cookery 
and  desire  to  master  it. 

Why  we  Commence  Dinner  with  Soup. — A  clear  soup  disappears 
almost  immediately  after  entering  the  stomach,  and  in  no  way  inter- 
feres with  the  gastric  juice,  which  is  stored  in  its  appropriate  cells 
ready  for  action.  The  habit  of  commencing  dinner  with  soup  has, 
without  doubt,  the  origin  in  the  fact  that  aliment  in  this  fluid  form, 
in  fact  ready  digested,  soon  enters  the  blood  and  rapidly  refreshes 
the  hungry  man,  who,  after  a  considerable  fast  and  much  activity,  sits 
down  with  a  sense  of  exhaustion  to  commence  his  principal  meal. 
In  two  or  three  minutes  after  he  has  taken  a  plate  of  good  warm  soup 
the  feeling  of  exhaustion  disappears,  and  irritability  gives  way  to  the 
gradually  rising  sense   of  good  fellowship  with  the  circle.     Some 

(403) 


404  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

persons  have  the  custom  of  allaying  exhaustion  with  a  glass  of  sherry 
before  food — a  gastronomic  no  less  than  a  physiological  blunder,  in- 
juring the  stomach  and  destroying  the  palate.  The  soup  introduces 
at  once  into  the  system  a  small  instalment  of  ready-digested  food, 
and  saves  the  short  period  of  time  which  must  be  spent  by  the 
stomach  in  deriving  some  nutriment  from  solid  aliment,  as  well  as 
indirectly  strengthening  the  organ  of  digestion  itself  for  its  forth- 
coming duties. 

Stock — General  Remarks. — Stock  being  the  basis  of  all  meat- 
soups,  and  also  of  all  the  principal  sauces,  it  is  essential  to  the  suc- 
cess of  these  culinary  operations  to  know  the  most  complete  and 
economical  method  of  extracting  from  a  certain  quantity  of  meat  the 
best  possible  stock  of  broth. 

Beef  makes  the  best  stock ;  veal  stock  has  less  color  and  taste, 
whilst  mutton  sometimes  gives  it  a  tallowy  smell,  far  from  agreeable, 
unless  the  meat  has  been  previously  roasted  or  broiled.     Fowls  add' 
very  little  to  the  flavor  of  stock,  unless  they  be  old  and  fat. 

Bones  ought  always  to  form  a  component  part  of  the  stock-pot. 

Brown  meats  contain  more  than  white,  and  make  the  stock  more 
fragrant. 

By  roasting  meat,  the  osmazome  appears  to  acquire  higher  proper- 
ties; so,  by  putting  the  remains  of  roast  meats  into  your  stock-pots, 
you  obtain  a  better  flavor. 

When  the  stock  is  well  skimmed  and  begins  to  boil,  put  in  salt 
and  vegetables,  which  may  be  two  or  three  carrots,  two  turnips,  one 
parsnip,  a  bunch  of  leeks  and  celery  tied  together. 

You  can  add,  according  to  taste,  a  piece  of  cabbage,  two  or  three 
cloves  stuck  in  an  onion,  and  a  tomato. 

The  latter  gives  a  very  agreeable  flavor  to  the  stock.  If  fried  onion 
be  added,  it  ought,  according  to  the  advice  of  a  famous  French  chef, 
to  be  tied  in  a  little  bag ;  without  this  precaution,  the  color  of  the 
stock  is  liable  to  be  clouded. 

Soups  will,  in  general,  take  from  three  to  six  hours'  doing,  and  are 
much  better  prepared  the  day  before  they  are  wanted. 


COOKERY   RECIPES.  4O5 

When  soups  and  gravies  are  kept  from  day  to  day  in  hot  weather, 
they  should  be  warmed  up  every  day,  and  put  into  fresh-scalded  pans 
•or  tureens,  and  placed  in  a  cool  cellar. 

In  temperate  weather,  every  other  day  may  be  sufficient. 

Soups  which  are  intended  to  constitute  the  principal  part  of  a  meal 
certainly  ought  not  to  be  flavored  like  sauces,  which  are  only  designed 
to  give  a  relish  to  some  particular  dish. 

Really  good  soup  can  never  be  made  but  in  a  well-closed  vessel, 
although,  perhaps,  greater  wholesomeness  is  obtained  by  an  occasional 
exposure  to  the  air. 

Soft  water  should  always  be  used  for  making  soup,  unless  it  be  of 
green  peas,  in  which  case  hard  water  better  preserves  its  color ;  and 
it  is  a  good  general  rule  to  apportion  a  quart  of  water  to  a  pound  of 
meat — that  is  to  say,  flesh  without  bone ;  but  rich  soups  may  have  a 
smaller  quantity  of  water. 

Meat  for  soup  should  never  be  drowned  at  first  with  water,  but 
put  into  the  kettle  with  a  very  small  quantity  and  a  piece  of  butter, 
merely  to  keep  it  from  burning  until  the  juices  are  extracted,  by 
which  means  of  stewing  the  gravy  will  be  drawn  from  it  before  the 
remainder  of  the  water  is  added.  A  single  pound  will  thus  afford 
better  and  richer  soup  than  treble  the  quantity  saturated  with  cold 
water ;  but  it  will  take  six  or  eight  hours  to  extract  the  essence  from 
a  few  pounds  of  raw  beef  Bouilli  beef  is  rendered  very  rich  and 
palatable,  though  a  considerable  quantity  of  soup  may  be  made  from 
it,  by  being  stewed  at  first  in  a  little  butter  and  some  of  its  own 
gravy. 

To  thicken  and  give  body  to  soups  and  gravies,  potato-mucilage, 
corn-starch,  bread-raspings,  isinglass,  flour  and  butter,  barley,  rice  or 
oatmeal  in  a  little  water,  rubbed  well  together,  are  used. 

A  piece  of  boiled  beef,  pounded  to  a  pulp,  with  a  bit  of  butter  and 
flour,  and  rubbed  through  a  sieve,  and  gradually  incorporated  with 
the  soup,  will  be  found  an  excellent  addition. 

"V^^hen  the  soup  appears  to  be  too  thin  or  too  weak,  the  cover  of 
the  boiler  should  be  taken  off,  and  the  contents  allowed  to  boil  till 


4o6  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

some  of  the  watery  parts  have  evaporated,  or  some  of  the  thickening 
materials  above  mentioned  should  be  added. 

Never  wash  meat,  as  it  deprives  its  surface  of  all  its  juices ;  sep- 
arate it  from  the  bones,  and  tie  it  round  with  tape,  so  that  its  shape 
may  be  preserved ;  then  put  it  into  the  stock-pot,  and  for  each  pound 
of  meat  let  there  be  one  pint  of  water ;  press  it  down  with  the  hand, 
to  allow  the  air  which  it  contains  to  escape,  and  which  often  raises  it 
to  the  top  of  the  water. 

Economical  Stock. — Take  the  liquor  in  which  a  joint  of  meat  has 
been  boiled,  say  four  quarts;  trimmings  of  fresh  meat  or  poultry, 
shank-bones,  etc.,  roast-beef  bones,  any  pieces  the  larder  may  furnish; 
two  ounces  of  butter,  two  large  onions,  each  stuck  with  cloves ;  one 
turnip,  three  carrots,  one  head  of  celery,  three  lumps  of  sugar,  two 
ounces  of  salt,  half  a  teaspoonful  of  whole  pepper,  one  large  blade  of 
mace,  one  bunch  of  savory  herbs,  four  quarts  and  one-half  pint  of 
cold  water.  Let  all  the  ingredients  simmer  gently  for  six  hours, 
taking  care  to  skim  carefully  at  first.  Strain  it  off,  and  put  by  for 
use. 

White  Stock  [to  be  used  in  the  preparation  of  white  soups). — Four 
pounds  of  knuckle  of  veal,  any  poultry  trimmings,  four  slices  of  lean 
ham,  three  carrots,  two  onions,  one  head  of  celery,  twelve  white  pep- 
percorns, two  ounces  of  salt,  one  blade  of  mace,  a  bunch  of  herbs, 
one  ounce  of  butter,  four  quarts  of  water. 

White  or  Medium  Stock. — Four  pounds  of  shin  of  beef,  or  four 
pounds  of  knuckle  of  veal,  or  two  pounds  of  each ;  any  bones,  trim- 
mings of  poultry,  or  fresh  meat,  one-fourth  pound  of  lean  bacon  or 
ham,  two  ounces  of  butter,  two  large  onions,  each  stuck  with  cloves; 
one  turnip,  three  carrots,  one  head  of  celery,  three  lumps  of  sugar, 
two  ounces  of  salt,  one-half  teaspoonful  of  whole  pepper,  one  large 
blade  of  mace,  one  bunch  of  savory  herbs,  four  quarts  and  one-half 
pint  of  cold  water. 

Cut  up  the  meat  and  bacon,  or  ham,  into  pieces  of  about  three 
inches  square;  rub  the  butter  on  the  bottom  of  the  stewpan;  put 
in  one-half  pint  of  water,  the  meat,  and  all  the  other  ingredients. 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


40; 


Cover  the  stewpan,  and  place  it  on  a  sharp  fire,  occasionally  stirring 
its  contents.  When  the  bottom  of  the  pan  becomes  covered  with  a 
pale,  jelly-like  substance,  add  the  four  quarts  of  cold  water,  and  sim- 
mer very  gently  for  five  hours.  As  before  said,  do  not  let  it  boil 
quickly.  Remove  every  particle  of  scum  whilst  it  is  doing,  and 
strain  it  through  a  fine  hair-sieve. 

This  stock  is  the  basis  of  many  of  the  soups  afterward  mentioned, 
and  will  be  found  quite  strong  enough  for  ordinary  purposes.  Cook 
five  and  one-half  hours. 

Mock-turtle  Soup  {Mrs.  Reynolds'  recipe). — Take  a  calf's  head 
and  feet;  boil  them  until  the  meat  separates  from  the  bones.  Pick  the 
bones  out  and  cut  the  meat  in  pieces,  about  an  inch  in  size ;  put  it 
back,  and  boil  it  two  hours  more.  Chop  the  brains  fine ;  add  eight 
or  nine  onions  and  a  little  parsley ;  mix  the  spice  with  this  (mace, 
cloves,  pepper  and  salt),  and  put  it  in  the  soup  an  hour  or  more  be- 
fore it  is  done.  Roll  six  or  eight  crackers  with  one-half  pound  of 
butter,  and  when  nearly  done  drop  it  in.  Brown  a  little  flour  and 
put  in.  Make  force-meat  balls  of  veal ;  fry  them,  and  put  in  the 
bottom  of  the  tureen. 

Tomato  Soup. — Take  six  large  tomatoes  ;  boil  in  one  pint  of  water 
until  done ;  then  take  them  off  the  stove  and  stir  in  one  teaspoonful 
of  saleratus ;  then  add  one  quart  of  milk,  and  season  with  plenty  of 
butter,  pepper  and  salt.  Let  it  all  come  to  a  boil,  when  it  is  ready 
for  use. 

Lobster  Soup. — Three  large  lobsters  or  six  small  ones  ;  the  crumb 
of  a  French  roll,  two  anchovies,  one  onion,  one  small  bunch  of  sweet 
herbs,  one  strip  of  lemon-peel,  two  ounces  of  butter,  a  little  nutmeg, 
one  teaspoonful  of  flour,  one  pint  of  cream,  one  pint  of  milk ;  force- 
meat balls,  mace,  salt  and  pepper  to  taste,  bread-crumbs,  one  ^^z, 
two  quarts  of  water.  Pick  the  meat  from  the  lobsters,  and  beat  the 
fins,  chine,  and  small  claws  in  a  mortar,  previously  taking  away  the 
brown  fin  and  the  bag  in  the  head.  Put  it  in  a  stewpan,  with  the 
crumb  of  the  roll,  anchovies,  onions,  herbs,  Icmon-pecl, 'and  the 
water ;  simmer  gently  till  all  the  goodness  is  extracted,  and  strain  it 


408  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

off.  Pound  the  spawn  in  a  mortar,  with  the  butter,  nutmeg  and  flour, 
and  mix  with  it  the  cream  and  milk.  Give  one  boil  up,  at  the  same 
time  adding  the  tails  cut  in  pieces.  Make  the  force-meat  balls  with 
the  remainder  of  the  lobster,  seasoned  with  mace,  pepper  and  salt, 
adding  a  little  flour  and  a  few  bread-crumbs ;  moisten  them  with  the 
egg,  heat  them  in  the  soup,  and  serve.  Cook  it  two  hours,  or  rather 
more. 

Vegetable  Soup  {^ood  and  cheap,  made  without  meat). — Six  pota- 
toes, four  turnips,  or  two  if  very  large  ;  two  carrots,  two  onions  ;  if 
obtainable,  two  mushrooms ;  one  head  of  celery,  one  large  slice  of 
bread,  one  small  saltspoonful  of  salt,  one-quarter  saltspoonful  of 
ground  black  pepper,  two  teaspoonfuls  of  Harvey's  sauce,  six  quarts 
of  water.  Peel  the  vegetables,  and  cut  them  up  into  small  pieces  ; 
toast  the  bread  rather  brown,  and  put  all  'into  a  stewpan  with  the 
water  and  seasoning.  Simmer  gently  for  three  hours,  or  until  all  is 
reduced  to  a  pulp,  and  pass  it  through  a  sieve  in  the  same  way 
as  pea  soup,  which  it  should  resemble  in  consistence;  but  it  should 
be  a  dark -brown  color.  Warm  it  up  again  when  required ;  put  in 
Harvey's  sauce,  and,  if  necessary,  add  to  the  flavoring.  It  should  be 
cooked  three  hours,  or  rather  more. 

Vegetable  Soup  (2). — Scrape  clean  and  slice  three  carrots  and 
three  turnips ;  peel  three  onions ;  fry  the  whole  with  a  little  butter  till 
it  turns  rather  yellow ;  then  add  two  heads  of  celery  cut  in  pieces, 
three  or  four  leeks,  also  cut  in  pieces  ;  stir  and  fry  the  whole  for  about 
six  minutes ;  when  fried,  add  also  one  clove  of  garlic,  salt,  pepper, 
two  cloves,  and  two  stalks  of  parsley ;  cover  with  three  quarts  of 
water;  keep  on  rather  a  slow  fire,  skim  off  the  scum  carefully,  and 
simmer  for  about  three  hours,  then  strain  and  use. 

Vegetable  Soup  (3). — Seven  ounces  of  carrot,  ten  ounces  of  par- 
snip, ten  ounces  of  potatoes  cut  in  thin  slices ;  one  and  one-quarter 
ounce  of  butter,  five  teaspoonfuls  of  flour,  a  teaspoonful  of  made 
mustard,  salt  and  pepper  to  taste ;  the  yolks  of  two  eggs ;  rather  more 
than  two  quarts  of  water.  Boil  the  vegetables  in  the  water  two  and 
one-half  hours ;  stir  them  often,  and  if  the  water  boils  away  too  quickly 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  4O9 

add  more,  as  there  should  be  two  quarts  of  soup  when  done.  Mix 
up  in  a  basin  the  butter  and  flour,  mustard,  salt  and  pepper,  with  a 
teacupful  of  cold  water;  stir  in  the  soup  and  boil  ten  minutes.  Have 
ready  the  yolks  of  the  eggs  in  the  tureen ;  pour  on,  stir  well,  and 
serve.     Time,  three  hours  ;  sufficient  for  eight  persons. 

Potato  Soup. — An  excellent  winter  soup  is  made  by  taking  four 
pounds  of  mealy  potatoes,  boiled  or  steamed  very  dry ;  pepper  and 
salt  to  taste ;  two  quarts  of  stock.  When  the  potatoes  are  boiled, 
mash  them  smoothly  that  no  lumps  remain,  and  gradually  add  them 
to  the  boiling  stock  ;  pass  it  through  a  sieve,  season,  and  simmer  for 
five  minutes.  Skim  well,  and  serve  with  fried  bread.  Half  an  hour 
for  cooking. 

Rice  Soup. — Four  ounces  of  rice,  salt,  cayenne  and  mace,  two 
quarts  of  white  stock.  Mode:  Throw  the  rice  into  boiling  water, 
and  let  it  remain  five  minutes ;  then  pour  it  into  a  sieve,  and  allow 
it  to  drain  well.  Now  add  it  to  the  stock  boiling,  and  allow  it  to 
stew  till  it  is  quite  tender ;  season  to  taste.  Serve  quickly.  Cook 
one  hour. 

Turnip  Soup. — Three  ounces  of  butter,  nine  good-sized  turnips, 
four  onions,  two  quarts  of  stock,  seasoning  to  taste.  Melt  the  butter 
in  the  stewpan,  but  do  not  let  it  boil ;  wash,  drain  and  slice  the  tur- 
nips and  onions  very  thin ;  put  them  in  the  butter,  with  a  teacupful 
of  stock,  and  stew  very  gently  for  an  hour.  Then  add  the  remainder 
of  the  stock,  and  simmer  another  hour.  Rub  it  through  a  taminy, 
put  it  back  into  the  stewpan,  but  do  not  let  it  boil.  Serve  very  hot. 
It  will  require  two  hours  and  a  half  to  cook  this  soup. 

Cabbage  Soup. — Take  one  large  cabbage,  three  carrots,  two  onions, 
four  or  five  slices  of  lean  bacon,  salt  and  pepper  to  taste,  two  quarts 
of  medium  stock.  Scald  the  cabbage,  cut  it  up  and  drain  it.  Line 
the  stewpan  with  the  bacon,  put  in  the  cabbage,  carrots  and  onions; 
moisten  with  skimmings  from  the  stock,  and  simmer  very  softly  till 
the  cabbage  is  tender;  add  the  stock,  stew  softly  for  half  an  hour, 
and  carefully  skim  off  every  particle  of  fat.  Season  and  serve. 
Time,  one  hour  and  a  half;  seasonable  in  winter;  sufficient  for  eight 
persons. 


410  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Carrot  Soup. — Use  four  quarts  of  liquor  in  which  a  leg  of  mutton 
or  beef  has  been  boiled,  a  few  beef-bones,  six  large  carrots,  two  large 
onions,  one  turnip;  seasoning  of  salt  and  pepper  to  taste;  cayenne. 
Put  the  liquor,  bones,  onions,  turnip,  pepper  and  salt,  into  a  stew- 
pan,  and  simmer  for  three  hours.  Scrape  and  cut  the  carrots  thin, 
strain  the  soup  on  them,  and  stew  them  till  soft  enough  to  pulp 
through  a  hair-sieve  or  coarse  cloth ;  then  boil  the  pulp  with  the  soup, 
which  should  be  of  the  consistency  of  pea  soup.  Add  cayenne.  Pulp 
only  the  red  part  of  the  carrot,  and  make  this  soup  the  day  before  it 
is  wanted.  Time,  four  hours  and  a  half.  This  quantity  is  sufficient 
for  ten  persons. 

Queen  Victoria's  Favorite  Soup. — The  soup  which  Queen  Vic- 
toria prefers  above  all  others,  and  is  known  as  "  Potage  a  la  Reine," 
is  made  as  follows :  Three  fat  chickens  are  to  be  drawn  and  washed 
in  warm  water,  and  then  stewed  down  in  strong  veal  broth  and  a 
bunch  of  parsley  for  an  hour;  take  out  the  fowls  and  soak  two 
French  brioches  or  rolls  in  the  liquor ;  then  the  flesh  of  the  chickens 
being  taken  off  the  bones,  and  cut  up  fine,  discarding  the  skin,  gristle, 
sinews,  etc. ;  now  put  this  meat  and  the  soaked  rolls,  together  with 
the  yolks  of  four  hard-boiled  eggs,  into  a  stone  mortar  and  pound 
them  to  a  smooth  paste ;  replace  this  paste  in  the  soup ;  stir  well 
together,  and  force  it  through  a  coarse  sieve  into  a  tureen ;  add  to 
this  one  quart  of  boiled  cream ;  make  all  very  hot,  and  send  to  table. 

Beef  Soup  {economical). — Take  the  bone  left  from  the  steak,  boil 
it  two  hours ;  skim  off  the  fat,  add  half  a  tablespoonful  of  shred 
gelatine,  one  onion,  pepper,  salt,  parsley,  summer-savory,  a  table- 
spoonful  of  tomato  catsup,  and  a  teacupful  of  washed  rice ;  then  peel 
three  potatoes,  cut  in  halves,  or,  if  very  large,  cut  in  quarters ;  throw 
them  in  the  soup,  with  crusts  of  bread  or  biscuit.  If  the  bone  is  large 
the  gelatine  can  be  omitted ;  it  adds  richness  to  the  soup.  This  recipe 
is  calculated  to  make  three  quarts  with  the  vegetables. 

Beef  Soup  {Mrs.  Reynolds'  recipe). — To  a  shin-bone,  put  three 
onions,  one  large  white  turnip,  a  large  handful  of  potatoes,  after  they 
are  sliced;  salt  and  pepper.     Put  the  meat  in  cold  water,  and  boil  it 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  41 1 

slowly  until  tender;  add  the  vegetables  and  boil  them  about  one  hour; 
then  stand  it  away  until  the  next  day,  then  skim  off  the  fat ;  chop 
up  a  head  of  celery ;  put  a  little  brown  flour  in ;  strain  the  vegetables 
out  if  you  want  it  nice.     Chop  up  the  meat  and  put  in  if  desired. 

Green  Corn  and  Tomato  Soup  {Mrs.  Pattersons  recipe). — Six  cars 
of  good,  sweet  corn,  cut  off  fine.  One  dozen  tomatoes  skinned  and 
sliced.  Put  corn  and  tomatoes  into  the  vessel  for  cooking,  and 
pour  in  half  a  gallon  of  boiling  water,  and  let  it  cook  slowly  for  an 
hour.  When  ready  to  serve,  add  half  a  gallon  of  sweet  milk  (to  have 
it  very  nice),  and  use  no  water  but  what  it  is  cooked  in.  Two  ounces 
of  butter,  teaspoonful  of  black  pepper,  salt  to  taste.  As  soon  as  it 
boils,  now,  it  is  ready  to  serve.  Those  who  prefer  to  have  the  flavor 
of  onion  in  it,  can  cut  up  a  small  one  very  fine  and  put  it  into  the 
tureen  and  pour  the  soup  over  it.  Irish  potatoes  may  be  substituted 
for  corn. 

Oyster  Soup. — Six  dozen  oysters,  two  quarts  of  white  stock,  one- 
half  pint  of  cream,  two  ounces  of  butter,  and  one  and  a  half  ounce 
of  flour ;  salt  and  pepper  to  taste.  Scald  the  oysters  in  their  own 
liquor ;  take  them  out,  beard  them,  and  put  them  in  a  tureen.  Take 
a  pint  of  the  stock,  put  in  the  beards  and  the  liquor,  which  must  be 
carefully  strained,  and  simmer  for  half  an  hour.  Take  it  off  the  fire, 
strain  it  again,  and  add  the  remainder  of  the  stock  with  the  season- 
ing. Bring  it  to  a  boil,  add  the  thickening  of  butter  and  flour,  sim- 
mer for  five  minutes,  stir  in  the  boiling  cream,  pour  it  over  the  oysters, 
and  serve.  This  quantity  of  oysters  will  make  soup  for  eight  persons, 
or  more  if  the  oysters  are  large.  This  soup  can  be  made  less  rich  by 
using  milk  instead  of  cream. 

Oyster  Soup  (2). — Two  quarts  of  good  mutton  broth,  six  dozen 
oysters,  two  ounces  butter,  one  ounce  flour.  Beard  the  oysters,  and 
scald  them  in  their  own  liquor;  then  add  it,  well  strained,  to  the 
broth ;  thicken  with  the  butter  and  flour,  and  simmer  for  quarter  of 
an  hour.  Put  in  the  oysters,  stir  well,  but  do  not  let  it  boil,  and 
serve  very  hot. 

Macaroni  Soup. — Three  ounces  of  macaroni,  a  piece  of  butter  the 


412  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

size  of  a  walnut,  salt  to  taste,  two  quarts  of  clear  stock.  Throw  the 
macaroni  and  butter  into  boiling  water  with  a  pinch  of  salt,  and  sim- 
mer for  half  an  hour.  When  it  is  tender,  drain  and  cut  it  into  thin 
rings  or  lengths,  and  drop  it  into  the  boiling  stock.  Stew  gently 
for  fifteen  minutes,  and  serve  grated  Parmesan  cheese  with  it.  Three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  is  sufficient  time  to  cook  it. 

Pea  Soup  with  Celery. — One-quarter  pound  each  of  onions  and 
carrots,  two  ounces  of  celery,  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  split  peas,  a 
little  mint  shred  fine,  one  tablespoonful  of  coarse  brown  sugar,  salt 
and  pepper  to  taste,  four  quarts  of  water,  or  liquor  in  which  a  joint 
of  meat  has  been  boiled.  Fry  the  vegetables  for  ten  minutes  in  a 
little  butter  or  dripping,  previously  cutting  them  up  in  small  pieces ; 
pour  the  water  on  them,  and  when  boiling  add  the  peas.  Let  them 
simmer  for  nearly  three  hours,  or  until  the  peas  are  thoroughly 
done.  Add  the  sugar,  seasoning,  and  mint;  boil  for  quarter  of  an 
hour,  and  serve. 

Pea  Soup. — Boil  split  peas  till  they  are  in  a  thorough  mash ;  melt  a 
little  finely  chopped  suet  well  in  a  pan,  frizzle  in  it  a  finely  chopped 
onion;  mix  this  with  the  peas;  add  more  warm  water  to  make  the 
soup ;  then  pepper,  salt,  and  powdered  sage ;  let  it  simmer  well  for 
twenty  minutes. 

Vermicelli  Soup. — One  and  one-half  pound  of  bacon,  stuck  with 
cloves;  one-half  ounce  of  butter  worked  up  in  flour;  one  small  fowl, 
trussed  for  boiling ;  two  ounces  of  vermicelli,  two  quarts  of  white 
stock.  Put  the  stock,  bacon,  butter  and  fowl  into  the  stewpan,  and 
stew  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  Take  the  vermicelli,  add  it  to  a 
little  of  the  stock,  and  set  it  on  the  fire  till  it  is  quite  tender.  It 
should  be  cooked'two  hours.  When  the  soup  is  ready,  take  out  the 
fowl  and  bacon,  and  put  the  bacon  on  a  dish.  Skim  the  soup  as  clean 
as  possible ;  pour  it,  with  the  vermicelli,  over  the  fowl.  Cut  some 
bread  thin,  put  in  the  soup,  and  serve. 

Stew  Soup. — Half  a  pound  of  beef,  mutton,  or  pork ;  half  a  pint 
of  split  peas,  four  turnips,  eight  potatoes,  two  onions,  two  ounces 
of  oatmeal  or  three  ounces  of  rice,  two  quarts  of  water.     Cut  the 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  4I3 

meat  into  small  pieces,  as  also  the  vegetables,  and  add  them,  with 
the  peas,  to  the  water.  Boil  gently  for  three  hours ;  thicken  with  the 
oatmeal,  boil  for  another  quarter  of  an  hour,  stirring  all  the  time,  and 
season  with  pepper  and  salt.  It  is  a  good  winter  soup.  This  soup 
may  be  made  of  the  liquor  in  which  tripe  has  been  boiled,  by  adding 
vegetables,  seasoning,  rice,  etc. 

Turkey  Soup  [a  seasonable  dish  at  Christmas). — Two  quarts  of 
medium  stock,  the  remains  of  a  cold  roast  turkey,  two  ounces  of 
rice-flour  or  arrowroot,  salt  and  pepper  to  taste,  one  tablespoonful 
of  Harvey's  sauce  or  mushroom  catsup.  Cut  up  the  turkey  in  small 
pieces  and  put  thetn  in  the  stock  ;  let  it  simmer  slowly  until  the 
bones  are  quite  clean,  which  will  be  in  about  four  hours.  Take  the 
bones  out,  and  work  the  soup  through  a  sieve ;  when  cold,  skim  well. 
Mi.x  the  rice-flour  or  arrowroot  to  a  batter  with  a  little  of  the  soup; 
add  it  with  the  seasoning  and  sauce  or  catsup.  Give  one  boil  and 
serve.  Seasonable  at  Christmas.  Instead  of  thickening  this  soup, 
vermicelli  or  macaroni  may  be  served  in  it. 

Cucumber  Soup  [FrcncJi  recipe). — Pare  one  cucumber,  quarter  it, 
and  take  out  the  seeds;  cut  it  in  thin  slices;  put  these  on  a  plate  with 
a  little  .salt  to  draw  the  water  from  them  ;  drain,  and  put  them  in 
your  stewpan,  with  a  piece  of  butter  the  size  of  a  walnut.  When  they 
are  warmed  through,  without  being  browned,  pour  the  stock  on  them. 
Add  sorrel,  cut  in  large  pieces,  a  little  chervil,  and  seasoning,  com- 
posed of  salt  and  pepper  to  taste,  the  yolks  of  two  eggs,  one  gill  of 
cream,  one  quart  of  medium  stock,  and  boil  for  forty  minutes.  Mix 
the  well-beaten  yolks  of  the  eggs  with  the  cream,  which  add  at  the 
moment  of  serving. 

Hodge-podge. — Two  pounds  of  shin  of  beef,  three  quarts  of  water, 

one  pint  of  table-beer,  two  onions,  two  carrots,  two  turnips,  one  head 

of  celery;   pepper  and  salt  to  taste;   thickening  of  butter  and  flour. 

Put  the  meat,  beer  and  water  in  a  stewpan,  simmer  for  a  few  minutes, 

and  skim  carefully.     Add  the  vegetables  and  seasoning  ;  stew  gently 

till  the  meat  is  tender.     Thicken  with  butter  and  flour,  and  serve 

with  turnips  and  carrots,  or  spinach  and  celery. 
26 


414  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

Asparagus  Soup. — One  and  one-half  pint  of  split  peas,  a  teacupful 
of  gravy,  four  young  onions,  one  lettuce  cut  small,  one-half  head  of 
celery,  one-half  pint  of  asparagus  cut  small,  one-half  pint  of  cream, 
three  quarts  of  water;  color  the  soup  with  spinach  juice.  Boil  the 
peas,  and  rub  them  through  a  sieve ;  add  the  gravy,  and  then  stew 
by  themselves  the  celery,  onions,  lettuce  and  asparagus  with  the 
water.  After  this,  stew  all  together,  and  add  the  coloring  and  serve. 
Time:  Peas  two  and  one-half  hours;  vegetables  one  hour;  altogether, 
four  hours. 

Mutton  Soup. — A  neck  of  mutton,  about  five  or  six  pounds,  three 
carrots,  three  turnips,  two  onions,  a  large  bunch  of  sweet  herbs,  in- 
cluding parsley ;  salt  and  pepper  to  taste ;  a  little  sherry,  if  liked ; 
three  quarts  of  water.  Lay  the  ingredients  in  a  covered  pan  before 
the  fire,  and  let  them  remain  there  the  whole 'day,  stirring  occasionally. 
The  next  day  put  the  whole  into  a  stewpan,  and  place  it  on  a  brisk 
fire.  When  it  commences  to  boil,  take  the  pan  off  the  fire,  and  put 
it  one  side  to  simmer  until  the  meat  is  done.  When  ready  for  use, 
take  out  the  meat,  dish  it  up  with  carrots  and  turnips,  and  send  it  to 
table ;  strain  the  soup,  let  it  cool,  strain  off  all  the  fat,  season  and 
thicken  it  with  a  tablespoonful,  or  rather  more,  of  arrowroot ;  flavor 
with  a  little  sherry,  simmer  for  five  minutes,  and  serve. 

Force-meats.  —  For  force-meats  special  attention  is  necessary. 
The  points  which  cooks  should,  in  this  branch  of  cookery,  more  par- 
ticularly observe,  are  the  thorough  chopping  of  the  suet,  the  com- 
plete mincing  of  the  herbs,  the  careful  grating  of  the  bread-crumbs, 
and  the  perfect  mixing  of  the  whole.  These  are  the  three  principal 
ingredients  of  force-meats,  and  they  can  scarcely  be  cut  too  small, 
as  nothing  like  a  lump  or  fibre  should  be  anywhere  perceptible. 
To  conclude,  the  flavor  of  no  one  spice  or  herb  should  be  permitted 
to  predominate. 

Force-meat  for  Pike,  Carp,  Haddock  and  various  kinds  of 
Fish. — Ingredients :  One  ounce  of  fresh  butter,  one  ounce  of  suet^ 
one  ounce  of  fat  bacon,  one  small  teaspoonful  of  minced  savory  herbs, 
including  parsley;  a  little  onion,  when   liked,  shred  very  fine ;   salt. 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


4IS 


nutmeg  and  cayenne  to  taste  ;  four  ounces  of  bread-crumbs,  one  egg. 
Mix  all  the  ingredients  well  together,  carefully  mincing  them  very 
fine  ;  beat  up  the  egg,  moisten  with  it,  and  work  the  whole  very 
smoothly  together.  Oysters  or  anchovies  may  be  added  to  this  force- 
meat, and  will  be  found  a  great  improvement. 

Force-meat  for  Veal,  Turkeys,  Fowls,  Hare,  etc. — Two  ounces 
of  ham  or  lean  bacon,  one-quarter  pound  of  suet,  the  rind  of  half  a 
lemon,  one  teaspoonful  of  minced  parsley,  one  teaspoonful  of  minced 
sweet  herbs ;  salt,  cayenne  and  pounded  mace  to  taste ;  six  ounces  of 
bread-crumbs,  two  eggs.  Shred  the  ham  or  bacon,  chop  the  suet, 
lemon-peel  and  herbs,  taking  particular  care  that  all  be  very  finely 
mixed ;  add  a  seasoning  to  taste  of  salt,  cayenne  and  mace,  and  blend 
all  thoroughly  together  with  the  bread-crumbs  before  wetting.  Now 
beat  and  strain  the  eggs,  work  these  up  with  the  other  ingredients, 
and  the  force-meat  will  be  ready  for  use.  When  it  is  made  into  balls, 
fry  of  a  nice  brown  in  boiling  lard,  or  put  them  on  a  tin  and  bake  for 
half  an  hour  in  a  moderate  oven.  As  we  have  stated  before,  no  one 
flavor  should  predominate  greatly,  and  the  force-meat  should  be  of 
sufficient  body  to  cut  with  a  knife,  and  yet  not  dry  and  heavy.  For 
very  delicate  force-meat,  it  is  advisable  to  pound  the  ingredients  to- 
gether before  binding  with  the  eggs ;  but,  for  ordinary  cooking, 
mincing  very  fine  answers  the  purpose.  Sufficient  for  a  turkey  or 
a  hare. 

FISH. 

General  Directions  for  Dressing. — Great  care  and  punctuality 
are  necessary  in  cooking  fish.  If  not  done  sufficiently,  or  if  done  too 
much,  it  is  not  good.     It  should  be  eaten  as  soon  as  cooked. 

Salmon,  mackerel,  herrings  and  trout  soon  spoil  or  decompose 
after  they  are  killed ;  therefore,  to  be  in  perfection,  they  should  be 
prepared  for  the  table  on  the  day  they  are  caught. 

With  flatfish  this  is  not  of  such  consequence,  as  they  will  keep 
longer. 

The  turbot,  for  example,  is  improved  by  being  kept  a  day  or  two. 


4i6  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

« 
In  dressing  fish  of  any  kind,  the  first  point  to  be  attended  to  is  to 

see  that  it  be  perfectly  clean.     It  is  a  common  error  to  wash  it  too 

much,  as  by  doing  so  the  flavor  is  diminished. 

If  the  fish  is  to  be  boiled,  a  little  salt  and  vinegar  should  be  put 
into  the  water  to  give  it  firmness,  after  it  is  cleaned. 

Codfish,  whiting  and  haddock  are  none  the  worse  for  being  a  little 
salted  and  kept  a  day ;  and,  if  the  weather  be  not  very  hot,  they  will 
be  good  for  two  days. 

When  fish  is  cheap  and  plentiful,  and  a  larger  quantity  is  purchased 
than  is  immediately  wanted,  the  overplus  of  such  as  will  bear  it  should 
be  potted,  or  pickled,  or  salted,  or  hung  up ;  or  it  may  be  refried, 
that  it  may  serve  for  stewing  the  next  day.  Fresh  water  fish,  having 
frequently'  a  muddy  smell  and  taste,  should  be  soaked  in  strong  salt 
and  water,  after  it  has  been  well  cleaned.  If  of  a  sufficient  size,  it 
may  be  scalded  in  salt  and  water,  and  afterward  dried  and  dressed. 

Fish  should  be  put  into  cold  water,  and  set  on  the  fire  to  do  very 
gently,  or  the  outside  will  break  before  the  inner  part  is  done.  Un- 
less the  fish  is  small,  it  should  never  be  put  into  warm  water;  nor 
should  water,  either  hot  or  cold,  be  poured  on  to  the  fish,  as  it  is 
liable  to  break  the  skin — if  it  is  necessary  to  add  a  little  water  whilst 
the  fish  is  cooking,  it  ought  to  be  poured  in  gently  .it  the  side  of  the 
vessel.  The  fish-plate  may  be  drawn  up  to  see  if  the  fish  be  ready, 
which  may  be  known  by  its  easily  separating  from  the  bone.  It 
should  then  be  immediately  taken  out  of  the  water,  or  it  will  become 
woolly. 

The  fish-plate  should  be  set  crossways  over  the  kettle,  to  keep  hot 
for  serving,  and  a  cloth  laid  over  the  fish  to  prevent  its  losing  its 
color. 

In  garnishing  fish,  great  nicety  is  required,  and  plenty  of  parsley, 
horseradish  and  lemon,  or  eggs  boiled  hard  and  cut  in  slices,  should 
be  used. 

If  fried  parsley  be  used,  it  must  be  washed  and  picked,  and  thrown 
into  fresh  water.  When  the  lard  or  dripping  boils,  throw  the  parsley 
into  it  immediately  from  the  water,  and  instantly  it  will  be  green  and 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  417 

crisp,  and  must  be  taken  up  with  a  slice.  Well  dressed,  and  with 
very  good  sauce,  fish  is  more  appreciated  than  almost  any  other  dish. 
The  liver  and  roe,  in  some  instances,  should  be  placed  on  the  dish, 
in  order  that  they  may  be  distributed  in  the  course  of  serving; 
but  to  each  recipe  is  appended  the  proper  mode  of  serving  and 
garnishing. 

If  fish  is  to  be  fried  or  broiled,  it  must  be  dried  in  a  nice,  soft  cloth 
after  it  is  well  cleaned  and  washed. 

If  for  frying,  brush  it  over  with  egg,  and  sprinkle  it  with  some  fine 
crumbs  of  bread. 

If  done  a  second  time  with  the  egg  and  bread,  the  fish  will  look  so 
nmch  the  better. 

If  required  to  be  very  nice,  a  sheet  of  white  blotting-paper  must 
be  placed  to  receive  it,  that  it  may  be  free  from  all  grease. 

It  must  also  be  of  a  beautiful  color,  and  all  the  crumbs  appear 
distinct. 

Butter  gives  a  bad  color;  lard  and  clarified  dripping  are  nx)st 
frequently  used  ;  but  oil  is  the  best,  if  the  expense  be  no  objection. 
The  fish  should  be  put  into  the  lard  when  boiling,  and  there  should 
be  a  sufficiency  of  this  to  cover  it. 

When  fish  is  broiled,  it  must  be  seasoned,  floured  and  laid  on  a 
very  clean  gridiron,  which,  when  hot,  should  be  rubbed  with  a  bit  of 
suet  to  prevent  the  fish  from  sticking. 

It  must  be  broiled  over  a  very  clear  fire,  that  it  may  not  taste 
smoky;  and  not  too  near,  that  it  may  not  be  scorched. 

Trout  Cooking. — The  trout  is  a  peculiar  fish  ;  it  requires  great 
nicety  in  cooking  or  its  flavor  is  lost.  The  flavor  of  the  brook  trout 
is  exceedingly  delicate  and  mu.st  be  dealt  with  in  a  gentle  manner. 

Brook  trout  should  never  be  placed  in  boiling  water  but  over 
steam ;  boiling  it  in  water  soddens  it  and  takes  away  its  flavor. 
When  steaming  it  put  into  the  water  some  peppercorns  and  a  very 
little  salt. 

A  sauce  for  trout  may  be  made  of  melted  butter  and  parsley,  or 
capers  or  tomatoes,  or  even  mushrooms.  Trout  deserves  a  delicate 
flavoring. 


4i8  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

A  second  way  of  cooking  trout  is  to  melt  a  piece  of  fresh  butter, 
stir  into  it  some  water,  and  place  the  trout  into  it,  adding  pepper- 
corns and  a  little  salt.  Place  round  several  slices  of  lemon  and  cover 
up  very  close.  Stew  like  this  twenty  minutes.  Take  out  and  strain 
the  gravy  over  the  trout. 

If  you  wish  the  gravy  thickened,  one  teaspoonful  of  flour  stirred 
into  the  butter  will  be  sufficient. 

Cover  the  trout  with  a  piece  of  greasy  paper  and  let  it  gently  frizzle 
in  the  pan,  or  put  pieces  of  bacon  under  it  and  over  it  and  let  it  frizzle. 

Make  a  fine  salad  to  this  dish. 

Steam  a  trout,  and  when  cold  pour  over  it  some  oil  mixed  with 
vinegar,  pepper  and  salt,  and  a  little  tomato  catsup. 

A  brook  trout  must  have  no  elaborate  cooking,  but  just  enough 
flavoring  to  enhance  its  native  aroma. 

To  Broil  a  Shad. — Shad  should  be  well  washed  and  dried.  It 
may  be  cut  in  half  and  broiled,  or  you  may  split  it  open  and  lay  a 
small  quantity  of  salt  over  it,  and  lay  it  upon  a  gridiron,  well  buttered. 
It  will  broil  in  about  twenty  minutes,  and  should  be  thoroughly  done. 
Melted  butter  may  be  served  in  a  sauce-boat  with  it.  Shad  is  even 
more  palatable  when  baked  than  broiled. 

To  Bake  Shad. — It  should  be  stuffed  with  mashed  potatoes  and 
chopped  parsley.  Lay  it  in  the  oven  on  a  pan  which  is  well  covered 
with  butter  chopped  in  pieces ;  baste  the  fish  with  butter,  and  add 
fresh  quantities  as  fast  as  it  is  absorbed.  Half  or  three-quarters  of  a 
pound  of  butter  should  be  used  for  a  large-sized  shad. 

To  Dress  Shad. — Scale,  empty,  and  wash  the  fish  carefully,  and 
make  two  or  three  incisions  across  the  back.  Season  it  with  pepper 
and  salt  and  lay  it  in  oil  for  a  few  minutes.  Broil  on  both  sides  over 
a  clear  fire  and  serve  with  caper-sauce. 

Baked  Fish. — Take  blue-fish,  bass  or  shad  for  this  purpose;  make 
a  dressing  of  bread  as  for  poultry,  only  adding  a  little  salt  pork 
chopped  fine,  and  no  herbs ;  fill  the  fish  with  the  dressing,  and  stew 
or  tie  it  up;  then  put  a  few  slices  of  salt  pork  in  a  pan,  and  very 
little  water;  lay  the  fish  in  the  pan,  and  put  a  few  slices  of  salt  pork 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  4I9 

over  it ;  bake  it,  according  to  its  size,  from  one-half  an  hour  to  an 
hour. 

Pharisee  Clams. — Boil  the  clams  until  they  are  open,  or  a  little 
longer;  then  chop  fine,  mix  them  with  bread-crumbs,  pepper  and 
butter;  put  them  in  the  shell  or  oyster-shells,  and  brown  them  in 
the  oven. 

Clams. — The  very  best  way  of  cooking  clams  is  to  chop  them  up 
"very  fine  first,  no  matter  whether  large  or  small.  In  this  way  clam 
soups  and  chowders  give  repose  afterwards,  and  not  melancholy. 

Boiled  Shoulder  of  Cod. — Take  the  upper  half  of  a  fresh,  cod, 
well  dressed,  put  in  a  napkin,  place  in  boiling  water  with  salt,  and  let 
it  boil  thirty  or  forty  minutes,  according  to  its  size.  Turn  out  upon 
a  hot  platter,  and  serve  only  the  fish  without  skin  or  bone. 

Salt-fish  Chowder. — Cover  the  bottom  of  a  kettle  with  slices 
of  salt  pork  ;  fry  to  a  light  brown.  Remove  the  kettle  from  the  fire. 
Put  in  first  a  layer  of  pared  and  sliced  potatoes,  then  bits  of  codfish 
(not  too  nuich),  then  a  layer  of  potatpes,  and  so  on.  Sprinkle  pepper 
■on  each  layer.  Add  water  sufficient  to  cover.  Stew  slowly  until 
the  potatoes  are  well  cooked ;  then  add  crackers,  half  a  pint  of  milk, 
and  a  thicken  of  flour  and  water.     Let  it  simmer  five  minutes. 

,  Nantucket  Chowder. — Have  five  pounds  of  codfish  cut  into 
steaks;  take  a  medium-sized  onion,  cut  in  slices  or  chopped  ;  a  quarter 
of  a  pound  of  fat,  salt  pork — a  little  more  would  do  no  liarm ;  chop 
the  pork  and  put  it  with  the  onions  in  the  bottom  of  a  large  sauce- 
pan or  kettle ;  let  them  fry  together  until  the  onions  are  brown ;  then 
have  four  medium-sized  potatoes  also  chopped;  put  a  layer  of  fish, 
seasoning  with  salt  and  pepper,  on  top  of  the  pork  and  onions,  then 
a  layer  of  potatoes,  and  so  on,  until  all  is  in  the  kettle  ;  pour  over  it 
three  quarts  of  water,  and  let  it  boil  half  an  hour;  soak  half  a  dozen 
crackers  in  a  pint  of  milk,  and  the  chowder  is  almost  done;  turn  the 
crackers  and  milk  into  it. 

How  TO  Cook  Codfish. — Wash,  pick  up  a  little,  and  soak  it  for  a 
long  time — say  four  or  five  hours  in  summer,  or  all  night  in  winter — 
in  warm  v/ater;  change  the  water  and  drain ;  pick  out  the  bones,  and 


420  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

heat  it  scalding  hot,  but  do  not  boil ;  make  some  good  milk-gravy, 
adding  cream,  if  you  have  it,  and  butter  (a  small  piece),  with  a  dash 
of  pepper;  let  this  boil  a  little,  then  add  the  fish  in  about  the  propor- 
tion of  a  pint  of  soaked  fish  to  a  quart  of  gravy.  Never  let  the  codfish 
boil;  it  hardens  it. 

To  Dress  Lobster,  Cold. — Take  the  fish  out  of  the  shell,  divide  it 
into  small  pieces,  mash  up  the  scarlet  meat  of  the  lobster,  prepare  a 
salad  mixture  of  cayenne  pepper,  salt,  sweet  oil,  vinegar  and  mustard; 
mix  the  lobster  and  the  mixture  well  together,  and  serve  them  in 
the  dish  in  which  they  were  mixed.  Lobster  is  usually  dressed  at 
table. 

Lobster  Patties. — Minced  lobster,  four  tablespoonfuls  of  bechamel, 
six  drops  of  anchovy  sauce,  lemon  juice,  cayenne  to  taste.  Line  the 
patty-pans  with  puff-paste,  and  put  into  each  a  small  piece  of  bread ; 
cover  with  paste,  brush  over  with  egg,  and  bake  to  a  light  color. 
Take  as  much  lobster  as  is  required,  mince  the  meat  very  fine,  and 
add  the  above  ingredients;  stii;  it  over  tlic  fire  for  five  minutes;  re- 
move the  lids  of  the  patty-cases,  take  out  the  bread,  fill  with  the 
mixture,  and  replace  the  covers.  Time :  About  five  minutes  after  the 
patty-cases  are  made. 

Lobster  Salad. — One  hen  lobster;  lettuces,  endive,  small  salad 
(whatever  is  in  season),  a  little  chopped  beet-root,  two  hard-boiled  eggs, 
a  few  slices  of  cucumber.  For  dressing,  four  tablespoonfuls  of  oil, 
and  two  of  vinegar,  one  teaspoonful  of  made-mustard,  the  yolks  of 
two  eggs;  cayenne  and  salt  to  taste;  one-quarter  teaspoonful  of  an- 
chovy sauce.  These  ingredients  should  be  mixed  perfectly  smooth 
and  form  a  creamy-looking  sauce.  Wash  the  salad,  and  thoroughly 
dry  it  by  shaking  it  in  a  cloth.  Cut  up  the  lettuces  and  endive,  pour 
the  dressing  on  them,  and  lightly  throw  in  the  small  salad.  Mix  all 
well  together  with  the  pickings  from  the  body  of  the  lobster;  pick 
the  meat  from  the  shell,  cut  it  up  into  nice,  square  pieces,  put  half  in 
the  salad,  the  other  half  reserve  for  garnishing.  Separate  the  yolks 
from  the  whites  of  two  hard-boiled  eggs ;  chop  the  whites  very  fine 
and  rub  the  yolks  through  a  sieve,  and  afterward  the  coral  from  the 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  421 

inside.  Arrange  the  salad  lightly  on  a  glass  dish  and  garnish,  first 
with  a  row  of  sliced  cucumber,  then  with  the  pieces  of  lobster,  the 
yolks  and  whites  of  the  eggs,  coral  and  beet-root  placed  alternately, 
and  arranged  in  small,  separate  bunches,  so  that  the  colors  contrast 
nicely. 

To  Boil  Lobsters. — One-quarter  pound  of  salt  to  each  gallon  of 
water.  Buy  the  lobsters  alive,  and  choose  those  that  are  heavy  and 
full  of  motion,  which  is  an  indication  of  their  freshness.  When  the 
shell  is  incrusted  it  is  a  sign  they  are  old  ;  medium-sized  lobsters  are 
the  best.  Have  ready  a  stewpan  of  boiling  water,  salted  in  the  above 
proportion,  put  in  the  lobster,  and  keep  it  boiling  quickly  from  twenty 
minutes  to  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  according  to  its  size,  and  do  not 
forget  to  skim  w^ell.  If  it  boils  too  long  the  meat  becomes  thready, 
and  if  not  done  enough  the  spawn  is  not  red;  this  must  be  obviated 
by  great  attention.  Rub  the  shell  over  witli  a  little  butter  or  sweet- 
oil,  which  wipe  off  again.  Time  :  Small  lobsters,  twenty  minutes  to 
half  an  hour ;  large  ones,  one-half  to  three-quarters  of  an  hour. 

Stewed  Eels. — Two  pounds  of  middling-sized  eels,  one  pint  of 
medium  stock,  one-quarter  pint  of  port  wine,  salt,  cayenne  and  mace 
to  taste;  one  teaspoonful  of  essence  of  anchovy,  the  juice  of  half  a 
lemon.  Skin,  wash  and  clean  the  eels  thoroughly;  cut  them  into 
pieces  three  inches  long,  and  put  them  into  strong  salt  and  water  for 
one  hour,  dry  them  well  with  a  cloth,  and  fry  them  brown.  Put  the 
stock  on  with  the  heads  and  tails  of  the  eels,  and  simmer  for  half  an 
hour;  strain  it,  and  add  all  the  other  ingredients.  Put  in  the  eels, 
stew  gently  for  half  an  hour,  when  serve.     Cook  two  hours. 

Boiled  Salmon. — Six  ounces  of  salt  to  each  gallon  of  water;  suf- 
ficient water  to  cover  the  fish.  Scale  and  clean  the  fish,  and  be  par- 
ticular that  no  blood  is  left  inside ;  lay  it  in  the  fish-kettle  with  sufficient 
cold  water  to  cover  it,  adding  salt  in  the  above  proportion.  Bring 
it  quickly  to  a  boil,  take  off  all  the  scum,  and  let  it  simmer  gently  till 
the  fish  is  done,  which  will  be  when  the  meat  separates  easily  from 
the  bone.  Experience  alone  can  teach  the  cook  to  fix  the  time  for 
boiling  fish  ;  but  it  is  especially  to  be  remembered  that  it  should  never 


422  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

be  under-dressed,  as  then  nothing  is  more  unwholesome.  Neither  let 
it  remain  in  the  kettle  after  it  is  sufficiently  cooked,  as  that  would 
render  it  insipid,  watery  and  colorless.  Drain  it,  and  if  not  wanted 
for  a  few  minutes,  keep  it  warm  by  means  of  warm  cloths  laid  over  it. 
Serve  on  a  hot  napkin,  garnish  with  cut  lemon  and  parsley,  and  send 
lobster  or  shrimp  sauce,  and  plain,  melted  butter  to  table  with  it. 
A  dish  of  dressed  cucumber  usually  accompanies  this  dish.  It  will 
'require  eight  minutes'  time  to  cook  each  pound,  for  large,  thick 
salmon,  and  six  minutes  for  thin  fish.  Cut  lemon  should  be  put  on 
the  table  with  this  fish,  and  a  little  of  the  juice  squeezed  over  it  is 
considered  by  many  persons  a  most  agreeable  addition. 

Salmon  and  Caper-sauce. — Two  slices  of  salmon,  one-quarter 
pound  of  butter,  one-half  teaspoonful  of  chopped  parsley,  one  shallot, 
salt,  pepper  and  grated  nutmeg  to  taste.  Lay  the  salmon  in  a  bak- 
ing-dish, place  pieces  of  butter  over  it,  and  add  the  other  ingredients, 
rubbing  a  little  of  the  seasoning  into  the  fish  ;  when  done,  take  it  out 
and  drain  for  a  minute  or  two,  lay  it  in  a  dish,  pour  caper-sauce  over 
it  and  serve.  Salmon  dressed  in  this  way,  with  tomato  sauce,  is  very 
delicious.     Cook  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour. 

Pickled  Salmon. — Salmon,  one-half  ounce  of  whole  pepper,  one- 
half  ounce  of  whole  allspice,  one  teaspoonful  of  salt,  two  bay  leaves, 
equal  quantities  of  vinegar  and  the  liquor  in  which  the  fish  was  boiled. 
After  the  fish  comes  from  the  table,  lay  it  in  a  nice  dish  with  a  cover 
to  it,  as  it  should  be  excluded  from  the  air,  and  take  away  the  bone; 
boil  the  liquor  and  vinegar  with  the  other  ingredients  for  ten  min- 
utes, and  let  it  stand  to  get  cold ;  pour  it  over  the  salmon,  and  in 
twelve  hours  this  will  be  fit  for  the  table. 

Stuffed  and  Baked  Fish. — Soak  bread  in  cold  water  until  soft ; 
drain  off  the  water,  mash  the  bread  fine ;  mix  it  with  a  tablespoonful 
of  melted  butter,  a  little  pepper  and  salt.  Cut,  smother,  add  spices 
if  preferred.  A  couple  of  raw  eggs  make  the  dressing.  Sew  up 
the  fish  after  putting  in  the  dressing,  and  lay  the  fish  in  a  baking- 
pan,  where  a  teacup  of  water  and  a  small  piece  of  butter  had  been  pre- 
viously put.  Bake  it  from  forty  to  fifty  minutes.  Fresh  cod,  bass 
and  shad  are  suitable  fish  for  baking. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  423 

To  Fry  Fish. — The  secret  of  frying  fish  well  consists  in  having 
enough  put  in  the  spider.  Let  them  fry  slowly  over  a  moderate  and 
steady  heat.  All  fish  should  be  fried  in  the  purest  oil.  This  can  be 
used  over  and  over  again  by  clarification  ;  and,  all  things  considered, 
oil  is  quite  as  economical  as  lard  or  drippings.  Clean  your  pan,  put 
therein  sufficient  oil  to  thoroughly  and  deeply  immerse  the  fish. 
Permit  this  to  boil,  and  it  will  attain  so  high  a  temperature  that  when 
a  finger  of  bread  is  dipped  into  it  and  instantly  drawn  out,  the  bread 
has  acquired  a  brown  surface,  or  a  piece  of  white  paper  dipped  into 
it  comes  out  dry,  then — and  not  until  then — your  fish,  already  egged 
and  bread-crumbed,  is  launched  lightly  on  the  surface  of  the  oil,  the 
boiling  power  of  which  will  keep  it  afloat,  and  then,  according  to 
the  thickness  of  the  fish,  from  two  to  three  minutes  should  be  given 
to  it;  then  turn  it  gently  with  flat  tongs. 

Fried  Smelts. — The  smelt  is  a  very  nice  little  fish,  which  has  a 
peculiarly  sweet  and  delicate  flavor  of  its  own,  that  requires,  to  be 
tasted  in  perfection,  no  other  cooking  than  plain  broiling  or  frying  in 
fresh  lard.  Do  not  wash  them,  but  wipe  them  dry  in  a  clean  cloth  ; 
having  opened  and  drawn  them,  and  cut  off  the  heads  and  tails,  dredge 
them  with  flour.  The  frying-pan  must  be  more  than  two-thirds  full 
of  boiling  lard  ;  boiling  hard  when  the  smelts  are  put  in,  so  as  to  float 
them  on  the  surface.     Cook  ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  according  to  size. 

Sardines. — Sardines  are  not  only  delicious  relishes  for  warm  days, 
just  as  they  are  taken  from  their  boxes,  with  no  other  sauce  save  the 
oil  they  arc  preserved  in,  but  they  are  susceptible  of  a  number  of 
ways  of  dressing  and  serving.  They  may  be  "  grilled  "  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner:  Open  a  box  containing  one  dozen  sardines,  remove 
the  skins  and  place  the  sardines  on  a  tin  plate  in  the  oven  till  they 
are  heated  through.  Meanwhile  pour  the  oil  from  the  sardines  into 
a  small  saucepan,  set  it  on  the  fire,  and  when  it  boils  put  in  an  even 
tablespoonful  of  flour;  stir  well ;  then  add  gradually  two  gills  of  weak 
-Stock  or  water.  Boil  till  it  is  as  thick  as  rich  cream,  then  add  one 
teaspoonful  of  Worcestershire  sauce  with  salt  and  plenty  of  cayenne 
pepper;  beat  together  the  yolk  of  one  egg,  one  teaspoonful  of  French 


424  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

mustard  and  one  teaspoonful  of  vinegar.  Pour  the  sauce  boiling"  hot 
on  the  egg  and  other  ingredients,  stir  a  moment,  then  pour  it  over 
the  sardines,  which  have  been  previously  placed  upon  slices  of  toast. 
Serve  at  once  upon  hot  plates. 

Curried  sardines  are  also  very  fine.  They  must  be  prepared  as 
above  and  put  on  toast,  but  a  different  sauce  is  poured  over  them. 
Put  the  oil  from  the  sardines  in  a  small  saucepan,  add  a  very  small 
onion  or  clove  of  garlic.  When  the  oil  boils  add  one  tablespoonful 
of  flour  and  one  teaspoonful  of  curry  powder,  then  add  two  gills  of 
stock  and  boil  until  a  good  consistency  is  reached ;  then  pour  it  upon 
the  yolk  of  an  egg  beaten  with  a  half  teaspoonful  of  lemon  juice  ;  add 
cayenne  pepper  and  salt ;  pour  it  ov^er  the  sardines  and  serve  hot. 

Another  method  is  to  remove  the  skin  and  dress  them  cold,  with 
salt  and  pepper,  and  serve  them  with  lettuce  or  cold-slaw  and  thin 
slices  of  bread  and  butter  before  other  dishes. 

OYSTERS. 

Oyster  Soup. — Make  your  stock  of  liquor  to  the  quantity  of  two 
quarts  with  any  sort  of  fish  the  place  affords ;  put  one  pint  of  oysters 
into  a  saucepan,  strain  the  liquor,  stew  them  five  minutes  in  their  own 
liquor;  then  pound  the  hard  parts  of  the  oysters  in  a  mortar  with  the 
yolks  of  three  hard  eggs ;  mix  them  with  some  of  the  soup,  then  lay 
them  with  the  remainder  of  the  oysters  and  liquor  in  a  saucepan,  with 
nutmeg,  pepper  and  salt.  Let  them  boil  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  when 
they  will  be  done. 

Broiled  Oysters. — Oysters  are  nice  broiled  in  their  shells  or  lair' 
in  shells  for  the  purpose ;  they  must  be  cooked  over  a  bed  of  hot  coals, 
and  butter  and  pepper  added  in  the  shell.     Serve  hot. 

To  Stew  Oysters. — To  stew  oysters,  open  them  and  strain  the 
liquor.  Put  to  them  some  grated  stale  bread,  and  a  little  pepper  and 
nutmeg.  Throw  them  into  the  liquor,  and  add  a  glass  of  white  wine. 
Let  them  stew  but  a  short  time,  or  they  will  be  hard.  Have  ready 
some  slices  of  buttered  toast  with  the  crust  off.  When  the  oysters 
are  done,  dip  the  toast   in   the   liquor  and   lay  the  pieces  around  the 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


425 


sides  and  in  the  bottom  of  a  deep  dish.  Pour  the  oysters  and  Hquor 
upon  tht;  toast,  and  send  them  to  the  table  hot 

Another  Way. — Strain  the  oyster  hquor ;  rinse  the  bits  of  sheUs 
off  the  oysters ;  then  turn  the  hquor  back  on  the  oysters,  and  put 
them  in  a  stewpan.  Set  them  to  boil  up,  then  turn  them  on  to  but- 
tered toast.     Salt,  pepper  and  butter  to  suit  the  taste. 

To  Fry  Oysters. — Make  a  batter,  then,  having  washed  your  oysters 
and  wipad  them  dry,  dip  them  into  the  batter,  and  roll  them  in  some 
crupbs  of  bread  or  crackers  finely  beaten.  Fry  them  as  any  other 
fish.  A  simpler  way  to  fry  oysters  is  to  drain  them  off  the  liquor; 
roll  each  oyster  in  finely  grated  crackers,  and  fry  in  a  hot  pan  with 
sufficient  fat.  Salt  and  pepper  before  taking  them  up,  and  then  upon 
the  dish  add  a  little  butter. 

Oysters  or  Cl.-^m  Fritters. — One  and  a  half  pints  of  milk ;  one 
and  a  quarter  pounds  of  flour ;  four  eggs — whites  and  yolks  beaten 
separately — whites  stirred  in  lightly  at  first.  Clams  must  be  chopped 
small ;  oysters  used  whole. 

Scolloped  Oysters. — Three  pmts  of  oysters  will  make  two  dishes. 
First  a  layer  of  oysters ;  then  cover  them  with  crackers  rolled  fine 
with  a  little  butter,  pepper,  salt,  and  with  the  liquor  of  the  oysters. 
Then  another  layer  of  oysters  covered  in  the  same  way  with  crackers, 
and  put  in  the  oven  and  bake.    Have  them  nicely  browned  on  the  top. 

MEATS. 

Broiling. — The  utensils  used  for  broiling  need  but  little  descrip- 
tion. The  common  gridiron  used  in  all  our  kitchens  is  the  same  as 
it  has  been  for  ages  past,  although  some  little  variety  has  been  intro- 
duced into  its  manufacture  by  the  addition  of  grooves  to  the  bars,  by 
means  of  which  the  liquid  fat  is  carried  into  a  small  trough. 

One  point  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind,  viz.,  that  the  gridiron  should 
be  kept  in  a  direction  slanting  toward  the  cook,  so  that  as  little  fat 
as  possible  may  fall  into  the  fire.  It  has  been  observed  that  broiling 
is  the  most  difficult  manual  office  the  general  cook  has  to  perform, 
and  one  that  requires  the  most  unremitting  attention ;  for  she  may  turn 


426  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

her  back  upon  the  stewpan  or  the  spit,  but  the  gridiron  can  never  be 
left  with  impunity.  • 

Frying. — This  very  favorite  mode  of  cooking  may  be  accurately 
described  as  boiling  in  fat  or  oil. 

Substances  dressed  in  this  way  are  generally  well  received,  for 
they  introduce  an  agreeable  variety,  possessing  as  they  do  a  peculiar 
flavor. 

By  means  of  frying,  cooks  can  soon  satisfy  many  requisitions  made 
on  them,  it  being  a  very  expeditious  mode  of  preparing  dishes  for 
the  table,  and  one  which  can  be  employed  when  the  fire  is  not  suffi- 
ciently large  for  the  purposes  of  roasting  and  boiling. 

The  great  point  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  frying  is  that  the  liquid 
must  be  hot  enough  to  act  instantaneously,  as  all  the  merit  of  this 
culinary  operation  lies  in  the  invasion  of  the  boiling  liquid,  which 
carbonizes  or  burns  at  the  very  instant  of  the  immersion  of  the  body 
placed  in  it. 

It  may  be  ascertained  if  the  fat  is  heated  to  the  proper  degree  by 
cutting  a  piece  of  bread  and  dipping  it  into  the  frying-pan  for  five  or 
six  seconds;  and  if  it  be  firm  and  of  a  dark  brown  when  taken  out, 
put  in  immediately  what  you  wish  to  prepare ;  if  it  be  not,  let  the  fat 
be  heated  until  of  the  right  temperature. 

This  having  been  effected,  moderate  the  fire,  so  that  the  action 
may  not  be  too  hurried,  and  that  by  a  continuous  heat  the  juices  of 
the  substance  may  be  preserved  and  its  flavor  enhanced. 

•It  is  to  be  especially  remembered,  in  connection  with  frying,  that 
all  dishes  fried  in  fat  should  be  placed  before  the  fire  on  a  piece  of 
blotting-paper,  or  sieve  reversed,  and  there  left  for  a  few  minutes,  so 
that  any  superfluous  greasy  moisture  may  be  removed. 

Boiling,  or  the  preparation  of  meat  by  hot  water,  though  one  of 
the  easiest  processes  in  cookery,  requires  skilful  management. 
Boiled  meat  should  be  tender,  savory,  and  full  of  its  own  juice,  or 
natural  gravy ;  but,  through  the  carelessness  and  ignorance  of  cooks, 
it  is  too  often  sent  to  table  hard,  tasteless  and  innutritions.  To  insure 
a  successful  result  in  boiling  flesh,  the  heat  of  the  fire  must  be  judi- 


COOKERY   RECIPES. 


427 


ciously  regulated,  the  proper  quantity  of  water  must  be  kept  up  in  the 
pot,  and  the  scum  which  rises  to  the  surface  must  be  carefully  re- 
moved. Many  writers  on  cookery  assert  that  the  meat  to  be  boiled 
should  be  put  into  cold  zvatcr,  and  that  the  pot  should  be  heated 
gradually  ;  but  Liebig,  the  highest  authority  on  all  matters  connected 
with  the  chemistry  of  food,  has  shown  that  meat  so  treated  loses 
some  of  its  most  nutritious  constituents.  "  If  the  flesh,"  says  the 
great  chemist,  "  be  introduced  into  the  boiler  when  the  water  is  in  a 
state  of  brisk  ebullition,  and  if  the  boiling  be  kept  up  for  a  few  min- 
utes and  the  pot  then  placed  in  a  warm  place,  so  that  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  water  is  kept  at  158°  to  165°,  we  have  the  united 
conditions  for  giving  to  the  flesh  the  qualities  which  best  fit  it  for 
being  eaten."  When  a  piece  of  meat  is  plunged  into  boiling  water, 
the  albumen  which  is  near  the  surface  immediately  coagulates,  form.- 
ing  an  envelop  which  prevents  the  escape  of  the  internal  juice,  and 
most  effectually  excludes  the  water,  which,  by  mixing  with  tins  juice, 
would  render  the  meat  insipid.  The  time  allowed  for  the  operation 
of  boiling  must  be  regulated  according  to  the  size  and  quality  of  the 
meat.  As  a  general  rule,  twenty  minutes,  reckoning  from  the  mo- 
ment when  the  boiling  commences,  may  be  allowed  for  every  pound 
of  meat.  All  the  best  authorities,  however,  agree  in  this,  that  the 
longer  the  boiling  the  more  perfect  the  operation.  The  vessels  used 
for  boiling  should  be  made  of  cast-iron,  well  tinned  within,  and 
provided  with  closely-fitting  lids.  They  must  be  kept  scrupulously 
clean,  otherwise  they  will  render  the  meat  cooked  in  them  unsightly 
and  unwholesome.  Copper  pans,  if  used  at  all,  should  be  reserved 
for  operations  that  are  performed  with  rapidity,  as,  by  long  contact 
with  copper,  food  may  become  dangerously  contaminated.  The  kettle 
in  which  a  joint  is  dressed  should  be  large  enough  to  allow  room 
for  a  good  supply  of  water  ;  if  the  meat  be  cramped  and  be  sur- 
rounded with  but  little  water,  it  will  be  stewed,  not  boiled.  In  stew- 
ing it  is  not  requisite  to  have  so  great  a  heat  as  in  boiling.  A  gentle 
simmering  in  a  small  quantity  of  water,  so  that  the  meat  is  stewed 
almost  in  its  own  juices,  is  all  that  is  necessary. 


428  THE  hearthstone;    or,  life  at  home. 

Stewing  is  the  cheapest  mode  of  cooking  meats.  It  should  be 
done  slowly,  the  pan  partly  uncovered,  and  frequently  skimmed. 

Stewed  Tripe. — Five  pounds  of  tripe  cut  in  small  pieces.  Two 
onions  cut  in  slices  and  fried  in  half-pound  of  lard  ;  put  in  the  tripe 
and  let  it  cook  a  little,  then  add  a  cup  of  vinegar,  a  bowl  of  beef- 
broth,  salt,  pepper,  and  three  tablespoonfuls  of  flour ;  mix  the  whole, 
and  let  it  stew  about  fifteen  minutes. 

Boiled  Round  of  Beef. — As  a  whole  round  of  beef,  generally 
speaking,  is  too  large  for  small  families,  and  very  seldom  required, 
we  here  give  the  recipe  for  dressing  a  portion  of  the  best  side  of  the 
round.  Take  from  twelve  to  sixteen  pounds,  after  it  has  been  in 
salt  about  ten  days ;  just  wash  off  the  salt,  skewer  it  up  in  a  nice, 
round-looking  form,  and  bind  it  with  tape,  to  keep  the  skewers  in 
their  places.  Put  it  in  a  saucepan  of  boiling  water,  set  it  upon  a  good 
fire,  and  when  it  begins  to  boil,  carefully  remove  all  scum  from  the 
surface,  as,  if  this  is  not  attended  to,  it  sinks  on  to  the  meat,  and 
when  brought  to  table  presents  a  very  unsightly  appearance.  When 
it  is  well  skimmed,  draw  the  pot  to  the  corner  of  the  fire  and  let  it 
simmer  very  gently  until  done.  Remove  the  tape  and  skewers,  which 
should  be  replaced  by  a  silver  one ;  pour  over  it  a  little  of  the  pot- 
liquor  and  garnish  with  carrots.  Carrots,  turnips,  parsnips,  and  some- 
times suet  dumplings,  accompany  this  dish  ;  and  these  may  all  be 
boiled  with  the  beef.  The  pot-liquor  should  be  saved  and  converted 
into  pea  soup ;  and  the  outside  slices,  which  are  generally  hard  and 
of  an  uninviting  appearance,  may  be  cut  off  before  being  sent  to  table, 
and  potted.  These  make  an  excellent  relish  for  the  breakfast  or  lunch- 
eon-table. Time:  Twelve  pounds,  three  hours  after  the  water  boils. 
Roasted  Meats. — Roasted  meats  are  really  baked  meats;  but  ovens 
are  now  so  well  made  and  ventilated  that  there  is  little  difference  of 
flavor  in  the  two  processes.  Allow  ten  minutes  to  the  pound  if  the 
meat  is  liked  rare,  and  from  twelve  to  fifteen  if  well  done.  It  is 
alivays  better  to  place  the  meat  on  a  stand  made  to  fit  easily  in  the 
roasting-pan,  so  that  it  may  not  become  sodden  in  the  water  used  for 
gravy.     Put  into  a  hot  oven,  that  the  surface  may  soon  sear  over  and 


COOKERY     RECIPES.  429 

hold  in  the  juices,  enough  of  which  will  escape  for  the  gravy.  All 
rough  bits  should  have  been'trimmed  off,  and  a  joint  of  eight  or  ten 
pounds  rubbed  with  a  tablespoonful  of  salt.  Dredge  thickly  with 
flour,  and  let  it  brown  on  the  meat  before  basting  it,  which  must  be 
done  as  often  as  once  in  fifteen  minutes.  Pepper  lightly.  If  the 
water  in  the  pan  dries  away,  add  enough  to  have  a  pint  for  gravy 
in  the  end.  Dredge  with  flour  at  least  twice,  as  this  makes  a 
crisp  and  relishable  outer  crust.  Take  up  the  meat,  when  done,  on 
a  hot  platter.  Make  the  gravy  in  the  roasting-pan,  by  setting  it  on 
top  of  the  stove,  and  first  scraping  up  all  the  browning  from  the 
corners  and  bottom.  If  there  is  much  fat,  pour  it  carefully  off.  If 
the  dredging  has  been  well  managed  while  roasting,  the  gravy  will 
be  thick  enough.  If  not,  stir  a  tablespoonful  of  browned  flour  smooth 
in  cold  water,  and  add.  Should  the  gravy  be  too  light,  color  with 
a  tablespoonful  of  caramel,  and  taste  to  see  that  the  seasoning  is 
right. 

Broiled  Beefsteaks  or  Rumpsteaks. — Select  steaks  and  have 
ready  a  piece  of  butter  the  size  of  a  walnut;  salt  to  taste,  one  table- 
spoonful of  good  mushroom  catsup,  or  Worcestershire  sauce.  As  the 
success  of  a  good  broil  depends  on  the  state  of  the  fire,  see  that  it  is 
bright  and  clear,  and  perfectly  free  from  smoke,  and  do  not  add  any 
fresh  fuel  just  before  you  require  to  use  the  gridiron.  Sprinkle  a 
little  salt  over  the  fire,  put  on  the  gridiron  for  a  few  minutes  to  get 
thoroughly  hot  through  ;  rub  it  with  a  piece  of  fresh  suet  to  prevent 
the  meat  from  sticking,  and  lay  on  the  steaks,  which  should  be  cut 
of  an  equal  thickness,  about  three-quarters  of  an  inch,  or  rather  thin- 
ner, and  level  them  by  beating  as  little  as  possible  with  a  rolling-pin. 
Turn  them  frequently  with  stcak-tongs  ;  if  these  are  not  at  hand,  stick 
a  fork  in  the  edge  of  the  fat,  so  that  no  gravy  escapes,  and  in  from 
eight  to  ten  minutes  they  will  be  done.  Have  ready  a  very  hot  dish, 
into  which  put  the  catsup,  and,  when  liked,  a  little  minced  shallot ; 
dish  up  the  steaks,  rub  them  over  with  butter,  and  season  with  pepper 
and  salt.     The  exact  time  for  broiling  steaks  must  be  determined  by 

taste,  whether  they  arc  liked   underdone  or  well  done ;   more  than 
27 


430  THE    hearthstone;    or,    life    at    HOiME. 

from  eight  to  ten  minutes  for  a  steak  three-quarters  of  an  inch  in 
thickness,  we  think,  would  spoil  and"  dry  up  the  juices  of  the  meat. 
Great  expedition  is  necessary  in  sending  broiled  steaks  to  table;  and 
to  have  them  in  perfection,  they  should  not  be  cooked  till  everything 
else  prepared  for  dinner  has  been  dished  up,  as  their  excellence  en- 
tirely depends  on  their  being  served  very  hot.  Garnish  with  scraped 
horse-radish  or  slices  of  cucumber.  Oyster,  tomato,  onion,  and  many 
other  sauces  are  frequent  accompaniments  to  rumpstcak,  but  true 
lovers  of  this  English  dish  reject  all  additions  but  pepper  and  salt. 

Seasonable  all  the  year,  but  not  good  in  the  height  of  summer,  as 
the  meat  cannot  hang  long  enough  to  be  tender. 

Broiled  Beef-bones. — Separate  the  bones  of  ribs  or  sirloin,  taking 
care  that  the  meat  on  them  is  not  too  thick  in  any  part ;  sprinkle 
them  well  with  salt  and  pepper,  and  broil  over  a  very  clear  fire. 
When  nicely  browned  they  are  done,  but  do  not  allow  them  to 
blacken. 

To  Clarify  Beef-dripping. — Good  and  fresh  dripping  answers 
very  well  for  basting  everything  except  game  and  poultry,  and,  when 
well  clarified,  serves  for  frying  nearly  as  well  as  lard.  It  should  be 
kept  in  a  cool  place,  and  will  remain  good  some  time.  To  clarify  it, 
put  the  dripping  into  a  basin,  pour  over  it  boiling  water,  and  keep 
stirring  the  whole  to  wash  away  the  impurities.  Let  it  stand  to  cool, 
when  the  water  and  dirty  sediment  will  settle  at  the  bottom  of  the 
basin.  Remove  the  dripping,  and  put  it  away  in  jars  or  basins  for 
use. 

Beef  a  la  Mode. — Six  or  seven  pounds  of  the  thick  flank  of  beef, 
a  few  slices  of  fat  bacon,  one  teacupful  of  vinegar,  black  pepper,  all- 
spice, two  cloves,  well  mixed  and  finely  pounded,  making  altogether 
one  heaped  teaspoonful ;  salt  to  taste ;  one  bunch  of  savory  herbs, 
including  parsley,  all  finely  minced  and  well  mixed ;  two  onions,  two 
large  carrots,  one  turnip,  one  head  of  celery,  one  and  one-half  pint  of 
water,  one  glass  of  port  wine.  Slice  and  fry  the  onions  of  a  pale 
brown,  and  cut  up  the  other  vegetables  in  small  pieces,  and  prepare 
the  beef  for  stewing  in  the  following  manner:  Choose  a  fine  piece  of 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  43 1 

beef,  cut  the  bacon  in  long  slices,  about  an  inch  in  thickness,  dip  them 
into  vinegar,  and  then  into  a  little  of  the  above  seasoning  of  spices, 
etc.,  mixed  with  the  same  quantity  of  minced  herbs.  With  a  sharp 
knife  make  holes  deep  enough  to  let  in  the  bacon ;  then  rub  the  beef 
over  with  the  remainder  of  the  seasoning  and  herbs,  and  bind  it  up 
in  a  nice  shape  with  tape.  Have  ready  a  well-tinned  stewpan  (it 
should  not  be  much  larger  than  the  piece  of  meat  you  are  cooking), 
into  which  put  the  beef,  with  the  vegetables,  vinegar  and  water.  Let 
it  simmer  very  gently  for  five  hours,  or  rather  longer  should  the 
meat  not  be  extremely  tender,  and  turn  it  once  or  twice.  When 
ready  to  serve,  take  out  the  beef,  remove  the  tape,  and  put  it  on  a 
hot  dish.  Skim  off  every  particle  of  fat  from  th^gravy,  add  the  port 
wine,  just  let  it  boil,  pour  it  over  the  beef,  and  it  is  ready  to  serve. 
Great  care  must  be  taken  that  this  does  not  boil  fast,  or  the  meat  will 
be  tough  and  tasteless  ;  it  should  only  just  bubble.  When  convenient, 
all  kinds  of  stews,  etc.,  should  be  cooked  on  a  hot  plate,  as  the  process 
is  so  much  more  gradual  than  on  an  open  fire.  This  will  be  a  suffi- 
cient quantity  for  seven  or  eight  persons. 

Beef  a  la  Mode  {Virginia  fashion). — Use  the  round  of  beef  and 
remove  the  bone ;  and  for  eight  pounds  allow  half  a  pint  of  good 
vinegar,  one  large  onion  minced  fine ;  half  a  teaspoonful  each  of 
mustard,  black  pepper,  cloves  and  allspice ;  and  two  teaspoonfuls  of 
brown  sugar.  Cut  half  a  pound  of  fat  salt  pork  into  lardons,  or 
strips,  two  or  three  inches  long  and  about  half  an  inch  square.  Boil 
the  vinegar  with  the  onion  and  seasoning,  and  pour  over  the  strips 
of  pork,  and  let  them  stand  till  cold.  Then  pour  off  the  liquor,  and 
thicken  it  with  bread  or  cracker  crumbs.  Make  incisions  in  the  beef 
at  regular  intervals — a  carving  steel  being  very  good  for  this  pur- 
pose— and  push  in  the  strips  of  pork.  Fill  the  hole  from  which 
the  bone  was  taken,  with  the  rest  of  the  pork  and  the  dressing,  and 
tie  the  beef  firmly  into  shape.  Put  two  tablespoons  of  dripping  or 
lard  in  a  frying-pan,  and  brown  the  meat  on  all  sides.  This  will 
take  about  half  an  hour.  Now  put  the  meat  on  a  trivet  in  the  kettle; 
half  cover  with  boiling  water ;  and  add  a  tablespoon  of  salt,  a  tea- 


432  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

spoonful  of  pepper,  an  onion  and  a  small  carrot  cut  fine,  and  two  or 
three  sprigs  of  parsley.  Cook  very  slowly,  allowing  half  an  hour  to 
a  pound,  and  make  gravy  by  the  directions  given  for  it  in  the  pre- 
ceding receipt.  Braised  beef  is  prepared  by  either  method  given 
here  for  a  la  mode  beef,  but  cooked  in  a  covered  iron  pan,  which 
comes  for  the  purpose,  and  which  is  good  also  for  beef  a  la  mode,  or 
for  any  tough  meat  which  requires  long  cooking,  and  is  made  ten- 
derer by  keeping  in  all  the  steam. 

Beefsteak  Pie. — Three  pounds  of  rump-steak,  seasoning  to  taste 
of  salt,  cayenne  and  black  pepper,  crust  water,  the  yolk  of  an  ^-g^. 
Have  the  steaks  cut  from  a  rump  that  has  hung  a  few  days,  that  they 
may  be  tender,  and  be  particular  that  every  portion  is  perfectly  sweet. 
Cut  the  steaks  into  pieces  about  three  inches  long  and  two  wide, 
allowing  a  small  piece  of  fat  to  each  piece  of  lean,  and  arrange  the 
meat  in  layers  in  a  pie-dish.  Between  each  layer  sprinkle  a  season- 
ing of  salt,  pepper,  and,  when  liked,  a  few  grains  of  cayenne.  Fill 
the  dish  sufficiently  with  meat  to  support  the  crust,  and  to  give  it  a 
nice  raised  appearance  when  baked,  and  not  to  look  flat  and  hollow. 
Pour  in  sufficient  water  to  half  fill  the  dish,  and  border  it  with  paste. 
Brush  it  over  with  a  little  water,  and  put  on  the  cover;  slightly  press 
down  the  edges  with  the  thunib,  and  trim  off  close  to  the  dish. 
Ornament  the  pie  with  pieces  of  paste  cilt  in  any  shape  that  fancy 
may  direct,  brush  it  over  with  the  beaten  yolk  of  an  &%'g,  make  a 
hole  in  the  top  of  the  crust,  and  bake  in  a  hot  oven  for  about  one 
hour  and  a  half  Beefsteak  pies  may  be  flavored  in  various  ways, 
with  oysters  and  their  liquor,  mushrooms,  minced  onions,  etc.  For 
family  pies  suet  may  be  used  instead  of  butter  or  lard  for  the  crust, 
and  clarified  beef-dripping  answers  very  well  where  economy  is  an 
object.  Pieces  of  underdone  roast  or  boiled  meat  may  be  used  in  pies 
very  advantageously,  but  always  remove  the  bone  from  pie-meat 
unless  it  be  chicken  or  game. 

Baked  Beefsteak  Pudding. — One  and  a  half  pounds  of  rump- 
steak,  one  kidney,  six  ounces  of  flour,  two  eggs,  not  quite  one  pint 
of  milk,  salt  to  taste,  pepper  and  salt.     Cut  the  steak  into  nice  square 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


433 


pieces  with  a  small  quantity  of  fat,  and  divide  the  kidney  into  small 
pieces ;  make  a  batter  of  flour,  eggs  and  milk  in  the  above  propor- 
tion ;  lay  a  little  of  it  at  the  bottom  of  the  pie-dish ;  then  put  in  the 
steak  and  kidney,  which  should  be  well  seasoned  with  pepper  and 
salt,  and  pour  over  the  remainder  of  the  batter.  Bake  for  one  and  a 
half  hours  in  a  brisk  but  not  fierce  oven. 

To  Pickle  Beef  for  Winter  Use  and  for  Drying. — Cut  the 
beef  into  suitable  pieces,  sprinkle  a  little  salt  on  the  bottom  of  the 
barrel,  pack  the  beef  without  adding  salt,  and  when  nicely  packed, 
pour  over  it  a  brine  made  by  dissolving  six  pounds  of  salt  for  each 
one  hundred  pounds  of  beef,  in  sufficient  cold  water  to  cover  it.  In 
three  weeks  such  pieces  as  are  designed  for  drying  will  be  ready  to 
hang  up  by  soaking  them  over  night  to  remove  the  salt  from  the 
outside. 

To  Keep  dried  beef  and  hams  away  from  flies,  pack  them  in  dry  salt. 
This  is  better  than  ashes,  oats,  sawdust,  or  anything  of  the  kind. 

Italian  Beefsteak. — Score  a  steak  transversely  with  a  sharp 
knife,  cutting  it  through ;  lay  it  in  a  stew-pan,  with  a  small  piece  of 
butter ;  season  with  pepper  and  salt,  and  an  onion  chopped  fine.  Let 
it  cook  three-quarters  of  an  hour  in  its  own  gravy,  and  serve  hot. 

Beefsteak. — The  tenderloin  is  the  best  for  broiline.  If  the  beef 
is  not  very  tender  it  should  be  laid  on  a  board  and  pounded  before 
broiling  or  frying  it.  Wash  it  in  cold  water,  then  lay  it  on  a  grid- 
iron, place  it  on  a  hot  bed  of  coals,  and  broil  it  as  quick  as  possible 
without  burning  it.  Beef-toast  is  prepared  by  chopping  fine  the 
remnants  of  beefsteak  or  cold  roast-beef  It  should  be  warmed  up 
with  a  little  water,  and  seasoned  with  butter,  salt  and  pepper.  Slices 
of  bread  should  be  toasted  and  laid  on  a  platter,  on  which  the  meat 
is  to  be  turned  when  hot. 

Boiled  Tongue. — In  choosing  a  tongue,  ascertain  how  long  it 
has  been  dried  or  pickled,  and  select  one  with  a  smooth  skin,  which 
denotes  its  being  young  and  tender.  If'a  dried  one,  and  rather  hard, 
soak  it  at  least  for  twelve  hours  previous  to  cooking  it :  if,  however, 
it  is  fresh  from  the  pickle,  two  or  three  hours  arc  sufficient  for  it  to 


434  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

remain  in  soak.  Put  the  tongue  into  a  stew-pan  with  plenty  of  cold 
water  and  a  bunch  of  savory  herbs;  let  it  gradually  come  to  a  boil, 
skim  well  and  simmer  very  gently  until  tender.  Peel  off  the  skin, 
garnish  with  tufts  of  cauliflowers  or  Brussels  sprouts,  and  serve. 
Boiled  tongue  is  frequently  sent  to  table  with  boiled  poultry  instead 
of  ham,  and  is,  by  many  persons',  preferred.  If  to  serve  cold,  peel  it, 
fasten  it  down  to  a  piece  of  board  by  sticking  a  fork  through  the  root, 
and  another  through  the  top  to  straighten  it.  When  cold,  glaze  it, 
and  put  a  paper  ruche  round  the  root,  and  garnish  with  tufts  of 
parsley.  Cook  a  large  smoked  tongue  from  four  to  four  and  a  half 
hours ;  a  small  one  two  and  a  half  to  three  hours.  A  large  unsoaked 
tongue  three  to  three  and  a  half  hours ;  a  small  one  two  to  two  and 
a  half  hours.     Seasonable  at  any  time. 

Boiled  Breast  of  Mutton  and  Caper-sauce. — Breast  of  mut- 
ton, bread  crumbs,  two  tablespoonfuls  of  minced  savory  herbs  (put  a 
large  proportion  of  parsley),  pepper  and  salt  to  taste.  Cut  off  the 
superfluous  fat ;  bone  it ;  sprinkle  over  a  layer  of  bread  crumbs, 
minced  herbs  and  seasoning,  roll  and  bind  it  up  firmly.  Boil  gently 
for  two  hours.  Remove  the  tape,  and  serve  with  caper-sauce,  a 
little  of  which  should  be  poured  over  the  meat.     Cook  two  hours. 

Warmed-over  Meats. — Boiled  or  roasted  veal  makes  a  nice  dish, 
chopped  fine  and  warmed  up,  with  just  sufficient  water  to  moisten  it, 
and  a  little  butter,  salt  and  pepper  added.  A  little  nutmeg  and  the 
grated  rind  of  a  lemon  improve  it — none  of  the  white  part  of  the  lemon 
should  be  used.  When  well  heated  through,  take  it  up  on  a  platter, 
and  garnish  it  with  a  couple  of  lemons  cut  in  slices. 

Fresh  or  corned  beef  is  good  minced  fine,  with  boiled  potatoes, 
and  warmed  up  with  salt,  pepper,  and  a  little  water — add  butter  just 
before  you  take  it  up.  Some  people  use  the  gravy  that  they  have 
Jsft  the  day  before  for  the  meat,  but  it  is  not  as  good  when  warmed 
over,  and  there  is  no  need  of  its  being  wasted,  as  it  can  be  clarified, 
and  used  for  other  purposes. '  Boiled  onions  or  turnips  are  good  mixed 
with  minced  meat  instead  of  potatoes. 

Veal,  lamb  and  mutton  are  good  cut  into  small  strips,  and  warmed 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  435 

with  boiled  potatoes  cut  in  slices,  pepper,  salt,  a  little  water — add 
butter  just  before  you  take  it  up.  Roast  beef  and  mutton,  if  not 
previously  cooked  too  much,  are  nice  cut  in  slices,  and  just  scorched 
on  a  gridiron. 

Meat,  when  warmed  over,  should  be  on  the  fire  just  long  enough 
to  get  well  heated  through  ;  if  on  too  long,  most  of  the  juices  of  the 
meat  will  be  extracted,  and  rendered  very  indigestible. 

Cold  fowls  are  nice  jointed  and  warmed  with  a  little  water,  then 
taken  up  and  fried  in  butter  till  brown.  A  little  flour  should  be 
sprinkled  on  them  before  frying.  Thicken  the  water  that*  the  fowls 
were  warmed  in,  add  a  little  salt,  pepper  and  butter,  and  turn  it  over 
the  fowls. 

Sausages. — Chop  fresh  pork  very  fine,  the  lean  and  fat  together 
(there  should  be  rather  more  of  the  lean  than  the  fat) ;  season  it  highly 
with  salt,  pepper,  sage  and  other  sweet  herbs.  If  you  like  them,  a 
little  saltpetre  tends  to  preserve  them.  To  tell  whether  they  are 
seasoned  enough,  do  up  a  little  in  a  cake  and  fry  it.  If  not  seasoned 
enough,  add  more  seasoning,  and  fill  your  skins,  which  should  be 
previously  cleaned  thoroughly.  A  little  flour  mixed  in  with  the 
meat  tends  to  prevent  the  fat  from  running  out  when  cooked. 
Sausage-meat  is  good  done  up  in  small  cakes  and  fried.  In  summer, 
when  fresh  pork  cannot  be  procured,  very  good  sausage  cakes  may 
be  made  of  raw  beef,  chopped  fine  with  salt  pork,  and  seasoned  with 
pepper  and  sage.  When  sausages  are  fried  they  should  not  be  pricked, 
and  they  will  cook  nicer  to  have  a  little  fat  put  in  the  frying-pan  with 
them.  They  should  be  cooked  slowly.  If  you  do  not  like  them  very 
fat,  take  them  out  of  the  pan  when  nearly  done,  and  finish  cooking 
them  on  a  gridiron.  Bologna-sausages  are  made  of  equal  weight  each 
of  ham,  veal  and  pork,  chopped  very  fine,  seasoned  high,  and  boiled 
in  casings  till  tender,  then  dried. 

Roast  H.\unch  of  Venison. — Choose  a  haunch  with  clear,  briglit, 
and  thick  fat,  and  the  cleft  of  the  hoof  smooth  and  close — the  greater 
quantity  of  fat  there  is  the  better  quality  will  the  meat  be.  As  many 
people  object  to  venison  when  it  has  too  much  haul  gout,  ascertain 


436  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

how  long  it  has  been  kept  by  running  a  sharp  skewer  into  the  meat 
close  to  the  bone.  When  this  is  withdrawn,  its  sweetness  can  be 
judged  of.  With  care  and  attention  it  will  keep  good  for  a  long 
time  during  the  winter,  unless  the  weather  is  very  mild.  Keep  it  per- 
fectly dry  by  wiping  it  with  clean  cloths  till  not  the  least  damp  re- 
mains. When  required  for  use,  wash  it  in  warm  water,  and  dry  it 
well  with  a  cloth.  Butter  a  sheet  of  white  paper,  put  it  over  the  fat; 
lay  a  coarse  paste,  about  half  an  inch  in  thickness,  over  this,  and  then 
a  sheet  or  two  of  strong  paper.  Tie  the  whole  firmly  on  to  the 
haunch  with  twine,  and  put  the  joint  down  to  a  strong,  close  fire ; 
baste  the  venison  immediately,  to  prevent  the  paper  and  string  from 
burning,  and  continue  this  operation,  without  intermission,  the  whole 
of  the  time  it  is  cooking.  About  twenty  minutes  before  it  is  done, 
carefully  remove  the  paste  and  paper,  dredge  the  joint  with  flour,  and 
baste  with  butter  until  it  is  nicely  frothed,  and  of  a  nice  pale-brown 
color ;  garnish  the  knuckle-bone  with  a  frill  of  white  paper,  and  serve 
with  a  good,  strong,  but  unflavored,  gravy  in  a  tureen,  and  currant- 
jelly  ;  or  melt  the  jelly  with  a  little  port  wine,  atid  serve  that  also  in 
a  tureen.  As  the  principal  object  in  roasting  venison  is  to  preserve 
the  fat,  the  above  is  the  best  mode  of  doing  so  where  expense  is  not 
objected  to ;  but,  in  ordinary  cases,  the  paste  may  be  dispensed  with, 
and  a  double  paper  placed  over  the  roast  instead.  It  will  not  require 
so  long  cooking  without  the  paste.  Do  not  omit  to  send  very  hot 
plates  to  table,  as  the  venison  fat  soon  freezes.  To  be  thoroughly 
enjoyed  by  epicures,  it  should  be  eaten  on  hot  water  plates.  The 
neck  and  shoulder  may  be  roasted  in  the  same  manner.  A  large 
haunch  of  buck-venison,  with  the  paste,  should  be  cooked  from  three 
and  a  quarter  to  three  and  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  Allow  less 
time  without  paste. 

This  is  a  large  amount,  and  would  be  sufficient  for  a  party  of 
eighteen  persons. 

Boiled  Leg  of  Mutton. — A  leg  of  mutton  for  boiling  should  not 
hang  too  long,  as  it  will  not  look  a  good  color  when  dressed.  Cut 
off  the  shank-bone,  trim  the  knuckle,  and  wash  and  wipe  it  very 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  437 

clean ;  plunge  it  into  sufficient  boiling  water  to  cover  it,  let  it  boil  up. 
Then  draw  the  saucepan  to  the  side  of  the  fire,  where  it  should  remain 
till  the  finger  can  be  borne  in  the  water.  Then  place  it  sufficiently 
near  the  fire,  that  the  water  may  gently  simmer,  and  be  very  careful 
that  it  does  not  boil  fast,  or  the  meat  will  be  hard.  Skim  well,  add  a 
little  salt,  and  in  about  two  and  a  quarter  hours  after  the  water  begins 
to  simmer,  a  moderate-sized  leg  of  mutton  will  be  done.  Serve  with 
carrots  and  mashed  turnips,  which  may  be  boiled  with  the  meat,  and 
send  caper-sauce  to  the  table  with  it.  To  cook  a  moderate-sized  leg 
of  mutton  of  nine  pounds  it  will  take  two  and  a  quarter  hours  after 
the  water  boils  ;  one  of  twelve  pounds,  three  hours.  The  liquor  this 
joint  was  boiled  in  should  be  converted  into  soup. 

An  Excellent  Way  to  Cook  a  Breast  of  Mutton. — Cut  the 
breast  of  mutton  into  pieces  about  two  inches  square,  and  let  it  be 
tolerably  lean ;  put  it  into  a  stewpan,  with  a  little  fat  or  butter,  and 
fry  it  of  a  nice  brown.  Then  dredge  in  a  little  flour,  slice  two  onions, 
and  put  them  with  the  herbs  in  the  stewpan ;  pour  in  sufficient  water 
just  to  cover  the  meat,  and  simmer  the  whole  gently  until  the  mutton 
is  tender.  Take  out  the  meat,  strain,  and  skim  off  all  the  fat  from  the 
gravy,  and  put  both  the  meat  and  the  gravy  back  into  the  stewpan  ; 
add  about  a  quart  of  young  green  peas,  and  let  them  boil  gently  until 
done ;  two  or  three  slices  of  bacon  added  and  stewed  with  the  mutton 
give  additional  flavor  ;  and,  to  insure  the  peas  being  a  beautiful  green 
color,  they  may  be  boiled  in  water  separately,  and  added  to  the  stew 
at  the  moment  of  serving. 

Broiled  Mutton  and  Tomato  Sauce. — Cut  some  nice  slices  from 
a  cold  leg  or  shoulder  of  mutton  ;  season  them  with  pepper  and  salt, 
and  broil  over  a  clear  fire.  Make  some  tomato  sauce,  pour  it  over 
the  mutton,  and  serve.  This  makes  an  excellent  dish,  and  must  be 
served  very  hot. 

Mutton  Chop. — Broil  over  a  quick  fire,  sprinkle  a  little  salt  on  it 
while  cooking;  turn  often,  and,  when  done,  season  well  with  butter, 
salt  and  pepper. 

A  Plain  Stew, — Take  finely-chopped  beef  suet  or  other  fat,  and 


438  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

warm  through,  slice  in  a  good  many  onions  right  across  in  rings,  let 
them  just  change  color  in  the  fat;  sprinkle  over  some  flour,  and  add 
warm  water.  Place  into  this  gravy  small  pieces  of  steak,  cut  thick ; 
add  pepper  and  salt,  and  cover  up  close,  to  stew  for  twenty  minutes. 
Place  then  over  the  stew  as  many  potatoes  as  will  be  required  for 
dinner,  pretty  well  of  one  size,  and  close  up  again,  allowing  the  whole 
to  simmer  gently  till  done.  Do  not  stir  at  all,  so  that  the  potatoes 
remain  whole.  Add,  the  last  ten  minutes,  two  spoonfuls  of  sauce  or 
mushroom  catsup,  and  let  simmer  for  that  time.  Turn  out  carefully, 
placing  the  potatoes,  which  will  be  whole,  round  the  dish.  This  stew 
has  been  very  successful.  A  good  and  cheap  mutton  stew  is  made 
with  a  piece  of  breast  or  neck  of  mutton  by  placing  it  in  a  saucepan 
Avith  the  usual  gravy  or  warm  water,  and  slicing  over  it  turnips  and 
carrots,  also  a  parsnip  and  onion  if  desired.  Cover  this  w^ith  a  suet 
crust  made  of  flour,  finely  chopped  beef  suet  and  warm  water.  Put 
the  crust  right  over  the  stew,  and  now  let  simmer  till  done.  It  will 
make  an  excellent  meal  for  a  large  family  of  small  means. 

Irish  Stew. — Take  three  pounds  of  the  loin  or  neck  of  mutton, 
five  pounds  of  potatoes,  five  large  onions,  pepper  and  salt  to  taste, 
rather  more  than  one  pint  of  water.  Trim  off  some  of  the  fat  of  the 
above  quantity  of  loin  or  neck  of  mutton,  and  cut  it  into  chops  of  a 
moderate  thickness  ;  pare  and  halve  the  potatoes,  and  cut  the  onions 
into  thick  slices;  put  a  layer  of  potatoes  at  the  bottom  of  a  stewpan, 
then  a  layer  of  mutton  and  onions,  and  season  Vv^ith  pepper  and  salt; 
proceed  in  this  manner  until  the  stewpan  is  full,  taking  care  to  have 
plenty  of  vegteables  at  the  top ;  pour  in  the  water,  and  let  it  stew 
very  gently  for  two  and  a  half  hours,  keeping  the  lid  of  the  stewpan 
closely  shut  the  whole  time,  and  occasionally  shaking  the  prepara- 
tion to  prevent  its  burning. 

A  Nice  Stew. — A  pound  of  beef,  with  the  addition  of  two  or 
three  potatoes,  and  the  gravy  of  the  last  roast  thickened  with  crum.bs 
of  stale  bread,  makes  an  ample  stew  for  an  ordinary-sized  family. 

Potted  Meats. — Cooked  meats  that  are  left  over  and  remain  on 
hand  should  be  potted.     Cut  the  meat  from  the  bone,  chop  fine,  and 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  439 

season  high  with  salt,  pepper,  cloves  and  cinnamon  ;  moisten  with 
vinegar,  wine,  brandy,  cider,  or  sauce  or  melted  butter,  according  to 
the  kind  of  meat  or  to  suit  your  own  taste.  Then  pack  it  tight  into 
a  stone  jar  and  cover  over  the  top  with  about  quarter  of  an  inch  of 
melted  butter.  It  will  keep  months,  and  always  afford  a  ready  and 
excellent  dish  for  the  breakfast  or  tea-table. 

Roast  Leg  of  Lamb. — Let  the  fire  be  moderate,  and  roast  the 
joint  slowly,  basting  it  frequently  till  done,  when  it  should  be 
sprinkled  with  salt,  and  the  gravy  freed  from  all  fat  before  serving. 

Beef  Patties. — Chop  fine  rare  roast  beef,  season  with  pepper, 
salt  and  a  little  onion.  Make  a  plain  paste,  cut  into  shape  hke  an 
apple  puff,  fill  with  the  mince,  and  bake  quickly. 

Spiced  Veal. — Chop  three  pounds  of  veal-steak  and  one  thick 
slice  of  salt  pork  as  fine  as  sausage  meat ;  add  to  it  three  Boston 
crackers  rolled  fine,  half  a  teacup  of  tomato  catsup,  three  well-beaten 
eggs,  one  and  one-half  teaspoonful  of  salt,  one  teaspoonful  of  pepper, 
and  one  grated  lemon.  Mould  it  in  the  form  of  a  loaf  of  bread,  in  a 
small  dripping-pan ;  cover  with  one  rolled  cracker,  and  baste  with  a 
teacupful  of  hot  water  and  two  tablespoonfuls  of  butter.  Bake  three 
hours,  basting  very  often.     This  is  an  excellent  dish  for  tea. 

Veal  and  Ham  Sandwiches. — Sandwiches  are  good  made  of 
veal  and  knuckle  of  ham  simmered  a  long  time  in  a  very  little  water, 
until  perfectly  tender,  then  freed  from  the  bones  and  chopped  to- 
gether. Spread  the  mixture  like  butter,  add  mustard,  and  cover  with 
another  piece  of  bread,  lightly  buttered,  as  for  ordinary  sandwiches. 

Ve.\l  Pie  (i). — Five  pounds  of  good  veal ;  cut  it  in  small  pieces;  put 
in  a  kettle  with  water  to  cover  it ;  cov^er  close,  and  boil  two  hours. 
P^or  crust,  one  and  one-half  cup  of  sour  milk,  one-half  cup  of  sweet 
suet  or  butter ;  one  teaspoonful  of  salt,  one  teaspoonful  of  soda.  But- 
ter a  five-quart  pan,  and  put  in  the  crust.  Do  not  roll  it  too  thin. 
Put  in  your  veal ;  pepper  and  salt  to  taste  ;  pour  in  the  water  the  veal 
was  boiled*  in  ;  a  piece  of  butter  the  size  of  an  egg  ;  dredge  in  a  spoon- 
ful of  flour,  roll  a  litde  lard  in  the  top  crust,  wet  the  edge  of  your 
under  crust  before  putting  the  top  on ;  bake  a  nice  brown. 


440  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Veal  Pie  (2). — The  following  is  a  good  recipe  for  English  ham  and 
veal  pie,  which  was  a  favorite  with  many  of  Dickens'  characters  :  "  Fry- 
two  large  veal  cutlets  from  a  leg  of  veal  ;  take  half  pound  of  ham  ;  cut 
the  veal  and  ham  in  pieces  about  two  inches  square  and  place  them 
in  a  saucepan  with  a  quart  of  broth ;  when  nearly  done  pour  in  a 
dish  and  let  cool ;  thicken  the  gravy  with  butter  and  flour ;  slice  one 
large  onion,  three  hard-boiled  eggs ;  add  a  little  sage  and  chopped 
parsley,  pepper  and  salt ;  arrange  meat  and  eggs  in  a  dish,  and  pour 
gravy  over;  cover  pie  with  puff  paste  and  ornament  with  fancy  cut 
pieces  of  paste ;  make  a  hole  on  top. 

Pickled  Tongue. — Take  a  corned  beef's  tongue  and  boil  until 
tender ;  take  off  the  skin ;  put  it  in  a  stone  basin  or  jar,  and  cover  it 
with  good  cider-vinegar ;  add  a  few  allspice,  whole  peppers  and  cloves 
— not  more  than  a  dozen  of  each. 

Broiled  Ham  and  Eggs. — Cut  the  ham  in  thin  slices,  take  off 
the  rind,  wash  the  slices  in  cold  water,  and  lay  them  on  the  gridiron 
over  quick  coals.  Turn  frequently,  and  they  will  soon  be  broiled. 
Take  them  up  on  a  platter  (previously  warmed),  butter  and  pepper 
the  ham.  Have  ready  on  the  fire  a  pan  of  boiling  water  from  the 
tea-kettle;  break  into  it  as  many  eggs  as  you  require  for  the  meal, 
and,  when  the  "  white  "  is  done,  dip  out  each  egg  carefully  with  a 
spoon,  so  as  to  keep  it  whole,  and  set  it  on  one  of  the  slices  of  ham. 
After  all  are  arranged,  sprinkle  pepper  over  each  egg  and  serve. 

To  Boil  a  Ham. — Take  a  ham  weighing  about  eight  or  ten 
pounds,  soak  it  for  twelve  or  twenty-four  hours  in  cold  water,  then 
cover  with  boiling  water ;  add  one  pint  of  vinegar,  two  or  three  bay 
leaves,  a  little  bunch  of  thyme  and  parsley.  The  dried  and  sifted 
will  do,  or  even  the  seed  of  parsley  may  be  used  if  the  fresh  cannot 
be  procured.  Boil  very  slowly  two  hours  and  a  half;  skim  it ;  remove 
all  the  fat  except  a  layer  about  half  an  inch  thick  ;  cut  off  with  a  sharp 
knife  all  the  black-looking  outside ;  put  the  ham  into  your  dripping- 
pan,  fat  side  uppermost,  grate  bread-crust  over  it,  and  sprinkle  a 
teaspoonful  of  powdered  sugar  over  it;  put  it  in  the  oven  for  half  an 
hour  until  it  is  brown.     Eat  cold.     Cut  the  nicest  portions  into  slices, 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  44I 

and  the  ragged  and  little  odds  and  ends  can  be  chopped  fine  and  used 

for  sandwiches.     Small  hams  are  better  in   flavor  and  quality  than 

large  ones.     A  brush  should  be  kept  to  scrub  them  with,  as  it  is 

impossible  to  get  them  clean  without  it.     The  fat  that  is  taken  off 

is  useless,  save  for  soap-grease.     In  carving,  cut  down  in  thin  slices 
through  the  middle. 

Pigs'  Feet. — Wrap  each  pig's  foot  in  a  cotton  bandage  wound 
two  or  three  times  around  it,  and  well  corded  with  twine.  Then  boil 
for  four  hours.  Let  them  remain  in  the  bandages  till  needed  to  fry, 
boil  or  pickle.  The  skin  will  hold  it  together  while  being  cooked, 
and  when  ready  for  the  table  they  will  be  found  tender  and  deli- 
cate. 

Souse. — Boil  the  pigs'  feet  until  the  bones  come  out  easily ;  put 
them  in  a  stone  pot  with  pepper  and  salt,  and  a  few  allspice,  and 
cover  them  with  good  cider  vinegar;  they  may  be  eaten  cold,  or 
dipped  in  flour  and  fried.  Another  way  is  to  pick  out  all  the  bones, 
season  the  meat  with  pepper,  salt  and  sage,  and  warm  it  up  as  you 
want  to  use  it.  Pigs'  feet,  after  being  boiled,  are  very  nice  cut  up  in 
small  pieces  and  stewed ;  make  the  gravy  with  butter,  a  little  flour 
and  water. 

Pork  and  Beans. — Look  over  the  beans,  and  put  them  in  soak 
the  evening  previous  to  cooking,  in  soft  water.  Parboil,  and  throw 
off  the  water  twice;  prepare  a  piece  of  pork,  and  put  it  in  the  beans 
with  the  third  water.  Let  the  water  boil  up,  skim,  and  boil  five  min- 
utes, and  drain  both  pork  and  beans  thoroughly.  Have  ready  boiling 
water,  put  Ihe  beans  and  pork  into  the  pot,  with  as  little  water  as  will 
cover  them,  simmer  gently  until  tender.  The  water  should  all  be 
evaporated  when  done,  leaving  the  beans  nearly  dry.  Taste,  and  if 
not  sufficiently  salted  by  the  pork,  season  with  more,  but  be  careful 
not  to  get  too  much  salt.  Spread  the  beans  evenly  in  a  baking-dish ; 
slash  the  pork,  and  put  it  on  a  pan  by  itself  to  bake ;  it  should  be 
handsomely  browned.  Stir  the  beans  often,  until  within  twenty  min- 
utes of  dinner-time,  then  spread  them  evenly,  and  let  them  brown. 
If  they  do  not  look  sufficiently  brown,  wet  them  over  with  egg,  and 


442  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

brown  with  hot-iron,  or  any  other  manner  convenient.     Lay  the  pork 
in  the  middle,  without  the  fat  which  dripped  from  it  in  roasting. 

POULTRY   AND    GAME. 

Roast  Turkey. — A  good-sized  turkey  should  be  roasted  two  hours 
and  a  half,  or  three  hours,  very  slowly  at  first.  If  you  wish  to  make 
plain  stuffing,  pound  a  cracker,  or  crumble  some  bread  very  fine ; 
chop  some  raw  salt  pork  very  fine,  sift  some  sage,  savory,  and  mould 
them  all  together,  seasoned  with  a  little  pepper;  an  cg^  worked  in 
makes  the  stuffing  cut  better. 

Another  Way  to  Roast  a  Turkey. — Unless  it  is  badly  soiled, 
never  soak,  or  wash  a  turkey,  as  many  do.  Indeed,  washing  in- 
jures any  kind  of  meat  and  fish,  except  those  kept  in  salt  brine. 
Carefully  draw  the  turkey  and  wipe  thoroughly  inside  and  out  witl'^ 
a  dry  towel.  It  will  thus  keep  longer  uncooked,  and  be  better  flavored. 
If  it  chances  to  be  a  tough  one,  steam  it  an  hour  or  two,  as  needed, 
before  baking.  If  one  has  not  a  steamer  large  enough,  as  few  have, 
it  may  be  done  in  a  wash-boiler,  supporting  the  bird  above  the  water 
on  a  couple  of  inverted  basins,  or  suspending  it  by  strings  from  the 
handles.  Use  stale  bread  chopped  fine,  just  moistened  with  scalding 
water,  not  to  a  "  mush,"  and  add  a  little  butter,  salt,  pepper,  and,  if 
desired,  a  small  pinch  of  sweet  marjoram  or  thyme.  After  stuffing 
and  sewing,  fasten  the  wings  and  legs  down  closely  with  skevv^ers,  or 
by  tying  with  strings.  Roast  in  the  dripping-pan  witliout  ivaia\  To 
keep  the  skin  from  scorching,  baste  now  and  then  with  a  little  water 
seasoned  with  butter  and  salt.  Bake  through  uniformly  to  a  light 
brown,  avoiding  burning  or  hardening  any  part.  A  good  oyster  stuff- 
ing, when  easily  obtainable,  is  liked  by  many,  as  follows :  Drain  off 
most  of  the  liquor  from  the  oysters,  season  with  sufficient  butter  and 
pepper,  and  roll  them  in  cracker  or  bread  crumbs.  Fill  the  cavity 
of  the  turkey  entirely  with  these. 

Boiled  Turkey. — Hen-turkeys  are  preferable  for  boiling  on  ac- 
count of  their  whiteness  and  tenderness,  and  one  of  itioderate  size 
should  be  selected,  as  a  large  one  is  not  suitable  for  boiling.     After 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  443 

having  dressed,  trussed  and  stuffed  the  bird,  put  into  sufficient  boiling 
water  to  cover  it ;  let  it  come  to  a  boil,  then  carefully  remove  all  the 
scum.  Let  it  simmer  very  gently  from  one  and  a  half  to  two  hours, 
according  to  size.     Serve  with  melted-butter  sauce,  or  with  oysters. 

To  B.4KE  A  Turkey. — Let  the  turkey  be  picked,  singed,  and  washed 
and  wiped  dry,  inside  and  out.  Joint  only  to  the  first  joints  in  the 
legs,  and  cut  some  of  the  neck  off  if  it  is  all  bloody;  then  cut  one 
dozen  small  gashes  in  the  fleshy  parts  of  the  turkey,  on  the  outside 
and  in  different  parts,  and  press  one  whole  oyster  in  each  gash  ;  then 
close  the  skin  and  flesh  over  each  oyster  as  tightly  as  possible ;  then 
stuff  your  turkey,  leaving  a  little  room  for  the  stuffing  to  swell. 
When  stuffed,  sew  it  up  with  a  stout  cord,  rub  over  lightly  with  flour, 
sprinkle  a  little  salt  and  pepper  on  it,  and  put  some  in  your  dripping- 
pan.  Put  in  your  turkey;  baste  it  often  with  its  own  drippings ;  bake 
to  a  nice  brown  ;  thicken  your  gravy  with  a  little  flour  and  water. 
Be  sure  and  keep  the  bottom  of  the  dripping-pan  covered  with  water, 
or  it  will  burn  the  gravy  and  make  it  bitter. 

Stewed  Turkey. — An  old  turkey  is  more  tender  if  .stewed  than 
cooked  in  any  other  way ;  put  in  a  large  stew-kettle  half  a  pound  of 
bacon  cut  in  slices,  four  ounces  of  knuckle  of  veal,  three  .sprigs  of 
parsley,  two  of  thyme,  a  bayleaf,  six  small  onions,  one  carrot  cut  in 
four  pieces,  three  cloves,  one  clove  of  garlic,  salt,  pepper,  and  then 
the  turkey ;  add  one  quart  of  broth ;  cover  as  nearly  air-tight  as  pos- 
sible ;  place  over  a  moderate  fire,  and  let  it  simmer — not  boil — about 
two  hours  and  a  half;  after  this,  dish  the  turkey;  strain  the  sauce 
and  put  it  back  on  the  fire  to  reduce  it  to  jelly,  which  spread  on  the 
turkey  and  serve;  if  to  be  used  cold,  the  turkey  can  be  prepared  one 
or  two  days  in  advance,  and  the  jelly  may  be  cut  in  squares  and' laid 
over  and  about  the  turkey. 

Chicken  Pie  (i). — Line  the  sides  of  a  baking-dish  with  a  good  crust. 
Have  your  chickens  cooked  as  for  a  fricassee,  seasoned  with  salt, 
pepper  and  butter;  before  they  are  quite  done  lay  them  in  a  baking- 
dish,  and  pour  on  part  of  the  gravy  which  you  have  thickened  with 
a  little  flour.     Cover  it  then  with  puff-paste ;  in  the  centre  of  this 


444  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

cover  cut  a  small  hole  the  size  of  a  silver  dollar,  and  spread  a  piece 
of  dough  twice  its  size  over  it.  When  baked  remove  this  piece  and 
examine  the  interior;  if  it  is  getting  dry,  pour  in  more  of  the  re- 
maining gravy ;  cover  it  again  and  serve.  It  should  be  baked  in  a 
quick  oven. 

Pigeon  and  veal  pies  are  made  after  the  above  recipe. 

Chicken  Pie  (2). — Joint  the  chickens,  which  should  be  young  and 
tender ;  boil  them  in  just  sufficient  water  to  cover  them.  When  nearly 
tender  take  them  out  of  the  liquor  and  lay  them  in  a  deep  pud- 
ding-dish, lined  with  pie-crust.  To  each  layer  of  chicken  put  three  or 
four  slices  of  pork,  add  a  little  of  the  liquor  in  which  they  were  boiled, 
and  a  couple  of  ounces  of  butter  cut  into  small  pieces ;  sprinkle  a 
little  flour  over  the  whole;  cover  it  with  nice  pie-crust,  and  ornament 
the  top  with  some  of  the  pastry.     Bake  it  in  a  quick  oven  one  hour. 

Chickens. — For  roasting  or  boiling,  chickens  should  have  a  dress- 
ing prepared  like  that  for  turkeys.  Half  a  teacup  of  rice  boiled 
with  them  makes  them  look  white. 

Smothered  Chicken  {Southern  method'). — Dress  young  chickens; 
wash  and  let  them  stand  in  water  half  an  hour  to  make  them  wdiite  ; 
put  into  a  baking-pan  (first  cutting  them  open  at  the  back);  sprinkle 
salt  and  pepper  over  them,  and  put  a  lump  of  butter  here  and  there; 
then  cover  tightly  with  another  pan  the  same  size,  and  bake  one 
hour;  baste  often  with  butter.     A  delicious  dish. 

Chicken  or  Fowl  Patties. — Take  the  remains  of  cold  roast 
chicken  or  fowl ;  to  every  quarter  of  a  pound  of  meat  allow  two 
ounces  of  ham,  three  tablespoonfuls  of  cream,  two  tablespoonfuls  of 
veal  gravy,  one-half  tablespoonful  of  minced  lemon-peel ;  cayenne, 
.salt  and  pepper  to  taste ;  one  tablespoonful  of  lemon-juice,  one  ounce 
of  butter  rolled  in  flour;  puff-paste.  Mince  very  small  the  white 
meat  from  a  cold  roast  fowl,  after  removing  all  the  skin ;  weigh  it, 
and  to  every  quarter  of  a  pound  of  meat  allow  the  above  proportion 
of  minced  ham.  Put  these  into  a  stewpan  with  the  remaining  ingre- 
dients, stir  over  the  fire  for  ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  taking  care  that  the 
mixture  does  not  burn.     Roll  out  some  puff-paste  about  one-quarter 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


445 


of  an  inch  in  thickness ;  line  the  patty-pans  with  this,  put  upon  each 
a  small  piece  of  bread,  and  cover  with  another  layer  of  paste ;  brush 
over  with  the  yolk  of  an  egg,  and  bake  in  a  brisk  oven  for  about 
one-quarter  of  an  hour.  When  done,  cut  a  round  piece  out  of  the 
top,  and  with  a  small  spoon  take  out  the  bread  (be  particular  in  not 
breaking  the  outside  border  of  the  crust),  and  fill  the  patties  with  the 
mixture.  It  will  require  one-quarter  of  an  hour  to  prepare  the  meat; 
not  quite  fifteen  minutes  to  bake  the  crust. 

Fried  Chicken. — Cut  up  the  chicken  and  parboil  it;  then  season 
each  piece  with  salt  and  pepper,  rub  with  flour,  and  fry  in  hot  lard. 
After  the  chicken  is  fried,  make  gravy  in  the  pan,  using  the  broth  in 
which  the  chicken  was  cooked. 

Roast  Goose. — If  the  goose  be  an  old  one,  put  it  in  a  pot  with 
cold  water,  and  let  it  remain  until  the  water  becomes  boiling  hot; 
then  take  it  out,  put  an  onion  inside  of  it,  but  no  other  dressing. 
Roast  it  then,  watching  it  that  it  does  not  get  too  much  browned. 
If  the  gravy  be  too  fat,  as  is  generally  the  case,  take  off  the  top, 
sprinkle  in  a  little  flour,  and,  if  you  like,  add  a  few  oysters ;  let  it 
boil  up,  and  serve.  Onions  and  apple-sauce  or  jelly  are  the  peculiar 
accompaniments  of  a  goose. 

Partridge  Pie. — Take  three  partridges,  pepper  and  salt  to  taste; 
one  teaspoonful  of  minced  parsley,  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  veal 
cutlet,  a  slice  of  ham,  half-pint  of  stock,  puff-paste.  Line  a  pie-dish 
with  a  veal  cutlet;  over  that  place  a  slice  of  ham  and  a  seasoning  of 
pepper  and  salt.  Pluck,  draw  and  wipe  the  partridges ;  cut  off  the 
legs  at  the  first  joint,  and  season  them  inside  with  pepper,  salt,  minced 
parsley,  and  a  small  piece  of  butter ;  place  them  in  the  dish,  and  pour 
over  the  stock ;  line  the  edges  of  the  dish  with  puff-paste,  cover  with 
the  same  ;  brush  it  over  with  the  yolk  of  an  egg,  and  bake  from  three- 
quarters  to  one  hour. 

Note. — Should  the  partridges  be  very  large,  split  them  in  half; 
they  will  then  lie  in  the  dish  more  compactly.  Some  cooks  carve 
the  partridges  into  joints  before  placing  them  in  the  dish.  This 
plan  is  commendable  on  account  of  the  ease  with  which  the  pie  can 
be  helped. 

20 


446  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Pigeons  on  Toast. — Split  some  young  pigeons  down  the^back, 
wipe  them,  season  with  pepper  and  salt,  rub  with  butter,  sprinkle 
lightly  with  flour,  and  broil  over  a  clear  fire.  Toast  some  neat,  thin 
slices  of  bread,  butter  them  quickly,  and  put  a  pigeon  on  each  slice, 
arranging  about  them  some  sprigs  of  fine  watercress. 

Boiled  Rabbit. — For  boiling,  choose  rabbits  with  smooth  and 
sharp  claws,  as  that  denotes  they  are  young ;  should  these  be  blunt 
and  rugged,  the  ears  dry  and  tough,  the  animal  is  old.  After  empty- 
ing and  skinning  it,  wash  it  well  in  cold  water,  and  let  it  soak  for 
about  one-quarter  of  an  hour  in  warm  water  to  draw  out  the  blood. 
Bring  the  head  round  to  the  side,  and  fasten  it  there  by  means  of  a 
skewer  run  through  that  and  the  body.  Put  the  rabbit  into  sufficient 
hot  water  to  cover  it ;  let  it  boil  very  gently  until  tender,  which  will 
be  in  from  one-half  to  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  according  to  its 
size  and  age.  Dish  it,  and  smother  it  either  with  onions  or  liver- 
sauce,  or  parsley  and  butter ;  the  former  is,  however,  generally  pre- 
ferred to  any  of  the  last-named  sauces.  When  liver-sauce  is  preferred, 
the  liver  should  be  boiled  for  a  few  minutes  and  minced  very  finely, 
or  rubbed  through  a  sieve  before  it  is  added  to  the  sauce.  A  very 
young  rabbit  will  require  to  be  cooked  one-half  hour ;  a  large  one 
three-quarters  of  an  hour;  an  old  one  one  hour  or  longer. 

Stewed  Rabbit. — Cut  a  rabbit  into  small  joints ;  put  them  into  a 
stewpan;  add  two  large  onions,  sliced,  six  cloves,  and  one  small  tea- 
spoonful  of  chopped  lemon-peel.  Pour  in  sufficient  water  to  cover 
the  meat,  and,  when  the  rabbit  is  nearly  done,  drop  in  a  few  force- 
meat balls,  to  which  has  been  added  the  liver,  finely  chopped.  Thicken 
the  gravy  with  flour  and  butter,  put  in  a  large  tablespoonful  of  tomato 
or  any  preferred  catsup;  give  one  boil  and  serve. 

A  Delicious  Stuffing  for  any  fowl,  but  especially  for  the  delicately 
flavored  chicken,  or  any  of  the  small  fowls,  is  made  by  taking  about 
two  dozen  oysters ;  chop  them  very  fine,  and  mix  them  with  two  cups 
of  fine  bread  crumbs,  or  powdered  crackers.  A  full  ounce  of  butter  is 
required.  A  tablespoonful  of  chopped  parsley,  a  little  grated  lemon 
peel,  plenty  of  salt  and  black  pepper,  and  a  suspicion  of  cayenne  pep- 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  44/ 

per;  mix  these  thoroughly;  that  is  half  the  secret  of  success  in 
cooking,  to  have  the  ingredients  which  compose  a  dish  so  blended 
that  it  is  impossible  to  tell  precisely  of  what  it  is  composed.  This 
stuffing  should  be  moistened  with  a  little  of  the  oyster  liquor,  and 
the  beaten  yolk  of  one  egg. 

SAUCES  AND  GRAVIES. 

The  preparation  and  appearances  of  sauces  and  gravies  are  of  the 
highest  consequence,  and  in  nothing  does  the  talent  and  taste  of 
the  cook  more  display  itself.  Their  special  adaptability  to  the  various 
viands  they  are  to  accompany  cannot  be  too  much  studied  in  order 
that  they  may  harmonize  and  blend  with  them  as  perfectly,  so  to 
speak,  as  does  a  pianoforte  accompaniment  with  the  voice  of  the 
singer. 

Brown  sauces,  generally  speaking,  should  scarcely  be  so  thick  as 
white  sauces;  and  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  that  all  those  which  are 
intended  to  mask  the  various  dishes  of  poultry  or  meat  should  be  of 
a  sufficient  consistency  to  slightly  adhere  to  the  fowls  or  joints  over 
which  they  are  poured.  For  browning  and  thickening  sauces,  etc., 
browned  flour  may  be  properly  employed. 

Sauces  should  possess  a  decided  character,  and  whether  sharp  or 
sweet,  savory  or  plain,  they  should  carry  out  their  names  in  a  distinct 
manner,  although,  of  course,  not  so  much  flavored  as  to  make  them 
too  piquant  on  the  one  hand,  or  too  mawkish  on  the  other. 

Gravies  and  sauces  should  be  sent  to  table  very  hot,  and  there  is 
all  the  more  necessity  for  the  cook  to  see  to  this  point,  as,  from 
their  being  usually  served  in  small  quantities,  they  are  more  liable 
to  cool  quickly  than  if  they  were  in  a  larger  body.  Those  sauces 
of  which  cream  or  eggs  form  a  component  part  should  be  well  stirred 
as  soon  as  these  ingredients  are  added  to  them,  and  must  never  be 
allowed  to  boil,  as  in  that  case  they  would  instantly  curdle. 

Brown  Apple  Sauce. — Use  six  good-sized  apples,  one-half  pint  of 
brown  gravy,  cayenne  to  taste.  Put  the  gravy  in  a  stewpan,  and  add 
the   apples,  after   having   pared,  cored   and    quartered  them.      Let 


448  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

them  simmer  gently  till  tender ;  beat  them  to  a  pulp,  and  season  with 
cayenne. 

Bread  Sauce  (to  seme  zvith  roast  turkey,  fowl,  game,  etc) — Gib- 
lets of  poultry,  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  the  crumbs  of  a  stale 
loaf,  one  onion,  twelve  whole  peppers,  one  blade  of  mace,  salt  to  taste, 
two  tablespoonfuls  of  cream  or  melted  butter,  one  pint  of  water. 
Put  the  giblets,  with  the  head,  neck,  legs,  etc.,  into  a  saucepan ;  add 
the  onion,  pepper,  mace,  salt,  and  rather  more  than  one  pint  of  water. 
Let  this  simmer  for  an  hour;  then  strain  the  liquor  over  the  bread, 
which  should  be  previously  grated  or  broken  into  small  pieces.  Cover 
up  the  saucepan,  and  leave  it  for  an  hour  by  the  side  of  the  fire;  then 
beat  the  sauce  up  with  a  fork  until  no  lumps  remain  and  the  whoU 
is  nice  and  smooth.  Let  it  boil  for  three  or  four  minutes;  keep 
stirring  it  until  it  is  rather  thick,  then  add  three  tablespoonfuls  of 
good  melted  butter  or  cream,  and  serve  very  hot.  Time — Two  hours 
and  a  quarter. 

Browning  for  Gravies  and  Sauces. — The  browning  for  soups 
answers  equally  well  for  sauces  and  gravies,  when  it  is  absolutel)'' 
necessary  to  color  them  in  this  manner ;  but  where  they  can  be  made 
to  look  brown  by  using  catsup,  wine,  browned  flour,  tomatoes,  or 
any  color  sauce,  it  is  far  preferable.  As,  however,  in  cooking,  so 
much  depends  upon  appearance,  perhaps  it  would  be  as  well  for  the 
inexperienced  cook  to  use  the  artificial  means.  When  no  browning 
is  at  hand,  and  you  wish  to  heighten  the  color  of  your  gravy,  dis- 
solve a  lump  of  sugar  in  an  iron  spoon  over  a  sharp  fire ;  when  it  is 
in  a  liquid  state,  drop  it  in  the  sauce  or  gravy  quite  hot.  Care,  how- 
ever, must  be  taken  not  to  put  in  too  much,  as  it  would  impart  a 
disagreeable  flavor.  * 

Clarified  Butter. — Put  the  butter  in  a  basin  before  the  fire,  and 
when  it  melts  stir  it  round  once  or  twice,  and  let  it  settle.  Do  not 
strain  it  unless  absolutely  necessary,  as  it  causes  so  much  waste. 
Pour  it  gently  off  into  a  clean,  dry  jar,  carefully  leaving  all  sediment 
behind.  Let  it  cool,  and  carefully  exclude  the  air  by  means  of  a 
bladder,  or  wash-leather,  tied  over.  If  the  butter  is  salt,  it  may  be 
washed  before  melting,  when  it  is  to  be  used  for  sweet  dishes. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  449 

Melted  Buiter  {economical). — Two  ounces  of  butter,  one  dessert- 
spoonful of  flour,  salt  to  taste,  half-pint  of  water.  Mix  the  flour  and 
water  to  a  smooth  batter,  which  put  into  a  saucepan.  Add  the  butter 
and  a  seasoning  of  salt;  keep  stirring  one  way  till  all  the  ingredients 
are  melted  and  perfectly  smooth ;  let  the  whole  boil  for  a  minute  or 
two,  and  serve.     Simmer  two  minutes. 

Caper  Sauce  for  Fish. — Half-pint  of  melted  butter,  three  dessert- 
spoonfuls of  capers,  one  dessertspoonful  of  their  liquor,  a  small 
piece  of  glaze,  if  at  hand  (this  may  be  dispensed  with),  one-quarter 
teaspoonful  of  salt,  ditto  of  pepper,  one  tablespoonful  of  anchovy 
essence.  Cut  the  capers  across  once  or  twice,  but  do  not  chop  them 
fine ;  put  them  in  a  saucepan  with  a  half-pint  of  good  melted  butter, 
and  add  all  the  other  ingredients.  Keep  stirring  the  whole  until  it 
just  simmers,  when  it  is  ready  to  serve. 

Gravy  for  Roast  Beef. — Melt  a  little  salt  in  a  gill  of  water ;  pour 
it  over  a  roast  when  put  in  the  oven ;  place  under  it  an  earthen  dish 
to  catch  the  drippings.  Baste  often  for  half  an  hour,  then  set  it  to 
cool.  When  cool  remove  all  fat,  heat  the  gravy  and  pour  it  over 
the  roast. 

Gravy  for  Steak. — Put  in  a  platter  for  two  slices  of  steak  a  piece 
of  butter  the  size  of  an  Q^%,  cut  in  small  pieces.  Add  a  little  salt, 
a  dust  of  pepper,  and  two  tablespoonfuls  of  hot  water.  Do  not  let  it 
boil,  but  just  melt  and  keep  warm. 

Cheap  Gravy  for  Minced  Meat. — Bones  and  trimmings  of  cold 
roast  or  boiled  veal,  one  pint  and  a  half  of  water,  one  onion,  quarter 
of  a  teaspoonful  of  minced  lemon-peel,  quarter  of  a  teaspoonful  of 
salt,  one  blade  of  pounded  mace,  the  juice  of  quarter  of  a  lemon, 
thickening  of  butter  and  flour.  Put  all  the  ingredients  into  a  stew- 
pan,  except  the  thickening  and  lemon-juice,  and  let  them  simmer  very 
gently  for  an  hour. 

Gravy  for  Venison. — Trimmings  of  venison,  three  or  four  mutton 
shank-bones,  salt  to  taste,  one  pint  of  water,  two  teaspoonfuls  of 
walnut-catsup.  Brown  the  trimmings  over  a  nice,  clear  fire,  and  put 
them  in  the  stewpan  with  the  shank-bones  and  water;  simmer  gently 

•J 


450  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

for  two  hours,  strain  and  skim,  and  add  the  walnut-catsup  and  a 
seasoning  of  salt.  Let  it  just  boil,  when  it  is  ready  to  serve.  Cook 
two  hours. 

Substitute  for  Caper  Sauce. — Half  a  pint  of  melted  butter,  two 
tablespoonfuls  of  cut  parsley,  half  a  teaspoonful  of  salt,  one  table- 
spoonful  of  vinegar.  Boil  the  parsley  slowly  to  let  it  become  a  good 
color;  cut,  but  do  not  chop  it  fine.  Add  to  it  a  half-pint  of  smoothly- 
made  melted  butter,  with  salt  and  vinegar  in  the  above  proportions. 
Let  it  simmer  two  minutes,  and  then  serve. 

Celery  Sauce  {for  boiled  turkey,  poultry,  etc.) — Six  heads  of 
celery,  one  pint  of  white  stock,  two  blades  of  mace,  one  small  bunch 
of  savory  herbs ;  thickening  of  butter  and  flour,  or  arrowroot,  half  a 
pint  of  cream,  lemon-juice.  Boil  the  celery  in  salt  and  water  till  ten- 
der, and  cut  into  pieces  two  inches  long.  Put  the  stock  into  a  stew- 
pan  with  the  mace  and  herbs,  and  let  it  simmer  for  one-half  hour  to 
extract  their  flavor.  Then  strain  the  liquor,  add  the  celery  and  a 
thickening  of  butter  kneaded  with  flour,  or,  what  is  still  better,  with 
arrowroot;  just  before  serving,  put  in  the  cream,  boil  it  up  and 
squeeze  in  a  little  lemon-juice.  If  necessary,  add  a  seasoning  of  salt 
and  white  pepper. 

Celery  Sauce. — Take  four  heads  of  celery,  wash  and  boil  it  in 
salt  and  water  till  tender,  and  cut  into  pieces  two  inches  long ;  use 
half  a  pint  of  melted  butter  made  with  a  little  milk,  and  put  in  the 
celery,  pounded  mace  and  seasoning.  Simmer  for  three  minutes, 
when  the  sauce  will  be  ready  to  serve.  It  will  require  twenty-five 
minutes  to  boil  the  celery. 

Tomato  Sauce  for  Keeping. — To  every  quart  of  tomato  pulp 
allow  one  pint  of  cayenne  vinegar,  three-quarters  of  an  ounce  of 
shallots,  three-quarters  of  an  ounce  of  garlic,  peeled  and  cut  in  slices; 
»salt  to  taste.  To  every  six  quarts  of  liquor,  one  pint  of  soy,  one  pint 
•of  anchovy  sauce.  Gather  the  tomatoes  quite  ripe ;  bake  them  in  a 
slow  oven  till  tender ;  rub  them  through  a  sieve,  and  to  every  quart 
of  pulp  add  cayenne  vinegar,  garlic,  shallots  and  salt,  in  the  above 
proportion.     Boil  the  whole  together  till  the  garlic  and  shallots  are 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


451 


quite  soft ;  then  rub  it  through  a  sieve,  put  it  again  into  a  saucepan, 
and  to  every  six  quarts  of  the  liquor  add  one  pint  of  soy,  and  the 
same  quantity  of  anchovy  sauce,  and  boil  all  together  for  about  twenty 
minutes ;  bottle  off  for  use,  and  carefully  seal  or  resin  the  corks.  This 
will  keep  good  for  two  or  three  years,  but  will  be  fit  for  use  in  a 
week.  A  useful  and  less  expensive  sauce  may  be  made  by  omitting 
the  anchovy  and  soy.     Time,  altogether,  one  hour. 

Pepper  Sauce. — One  head  of  cabbage,  twenty-five  green  peppers 
and  a  small  measure  of  onions.  Chop  fine.  Add  one-half  pound  of 
mustard-seed  and  a  handful  of  salt ;  put  it  in  a  stone  pot,  with  vinegar 
enough  to  wet  it  thoroughly. 

Chow-chow. — Four  quarts  chopped  tomatoes,  one  quart  chopped 
onions,  one  pint  chopped  peppers,  half-cup  white  mustard-seed,  half- 
cup  salt.  Mix  and  cover  with  cold  vinegar,  then  add  sugar  and  curry 
powder  to  taste. 

To  Preserve  Parsley  through  the  Winter.  —  Use  freshly- 
gathered  parsley  for  keeping,  and  wash  it  perfectly  free  from  grit  and 
dirt;  put  it  into  boiling  water  which  has  been  slightly  salted  and  well 
skimmed,  and  then  let  it  boil  for  two  or  three  minutes  ;  take  it  out, 
let  it  drain  and  lay  it  on  a  sieve  in  front  of  the  fire,  when  it  should  be 
dried  as  expeditiously  as  possible.  Store  it  away  in  a  very  dry  place 
in  bottles,  and  when  wanted  for  use,  pour  over  it  a  little  warm  water, 
and  let  it  stand  for  about  five  minutes. 

Keeping  Sweet  Cider. — Heat  the  cider  until  it  boils,  pour  into 
bottles,  which  have  been  previously  heated  to  prevent  cracking.  Cork 
tight,  and  seal  immediately,  as  in  canning  fruit.  The  cider  will  keep 
unchanged  for  years. 

Home-made  Vinegar. — To  one  pint  of  strained  honey  add  two 
gallons  of  soft  water.  Let  it  stand  in  a  moderately  warm  place ;  in 
three  weeks  it  will  be  excellent  vinegar. 

Cheap  Vinegar. — Take  a  quantity  of  common  Irish  potatoes, 
wash  them  until  they  are  thoroughly  clean,  place  them  in  a  large 
vessel,  and  boil  until  done.  Drain  off  carefully  the  water  they  were 
cooked  in,  straining  it,  if  necessary,  in  order  to  remove  every  particle 


452  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

of  the  potato.  Then  put  this  potato-water  in  a  jug  or  keg,  which  set 
near  the  stove,  or  in  some  place  where  it  will  be  kept  warm,  and  add 
one  pound  of  sugar  to  about  two  gallons  and  a  half  of  the  water, 
some  hop  yeast,  or  a  small  portion  of  whiskey.  Let  it  stand  three  or 
four  weeks  and  you  will  have  excellent  vinegar,  at  the  cost  of  six  or 
seven  cents  per  gallon. 

Spiced  Tomatoes. — One  peck  of  tomatoes,  three  pounds  of  brown 
sugar;  boil  four  or  five  hours.  One  hour  before  taking  from  the  fire, 
add  one  pint  of  vinegar  and  a  handful  of  spices,  consisting  of  un- 
ground  cinnamon,  cloves  and  mace. 

Spiced  Sweetmeats. — Ten  pounds  of  fruit,  six  pounds  of  brown 
sugar,  one  ounce  of  ground  cloves,  one  ounce  of  allspice,  one  ounce 
of  cinnamon,  a  little  mace. 

Hot  Spice  {a  delicious  adjujict  to  chops,  steaks,  gravies,  etc) — 
Three  drams  each  of  ginger,  black  pepper  and  cinnamon,  seven 
cloves,  half  an  ounce  of  mace,  quarter  of  an  ounce  of  cayenne,  one 
ounce  of  grated  nutmeg,  an  ounce  and  a  half  of  white  pepper.  Pound 
the  ingredients  and  mix  them  thoroughly  together,  taking  care  that 
everything  is  well  blended.  Put  the  spice  in  a  very  dry  glass  bottle 
for  use.  The  quantity  of  cayenne  may  be  increased  should  the  above 
not  be  enough  to  suit  the  palate. 

Crab  Sauce  for  Fish  [equal  to  Lobster  Sauce). — Choose  a  nice 
fresh  crab,  pick  all  the  meat  away  from  the  shell,  and  cut  it  into 
small  square  pieces.  Make  half  a  pint  of  melted  butter,  and  put  it 
in  the  fish  and  seasoning ;  let  it  gradually  warm  through,  and  sim- 
mer for  two  minutes.     It  should  not  boil. 

Cucumber  Vinegar  [a  very  nice  addition  to  salads). — Use  ten 
large  cucumbers  or  twelve  small  ones,  one  quart  of  vinegar,  two 
onions,  two  shallots,  one  tablespoonful  of  salt,  two  tablespoonfuls 
of  pepper,  one-quarter  of  a  teaspoonful  of  cayenne.  Pare  and  slice 
the  cucumbers,  put  them  in  a  stone  jar  or  open-mouthed  bottle 
with  the  vinegar ;  slice  the  onions  and  shallots,  and  add  them,  with 
all  the  other  ingredients,  to  the  cucumbers.  Let  it  stand  four  or 
five  days,  boil  it  all  up,  and  when  cold  strain  the  liquor  through  a 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  453 

piece  of  muslin,  and  store  it  away  in  small  bottles  well  sealed.  This 
vinegar  is  a  very  nice  addition  to  gravies,  hashes,  etc.,  as  well  as  a 
great  improvement  to  salads,  or  to  eat  with  cold  meat. 

Caramel  for  Coloring. — Haifa  pound  of  brown  sugar,  one  table- 
spoonful  of  water  put  into  a  frying-pan,  and  stir  steadily  over  the  fire 
till  it  becomes  a  deep,  dark  brown  in  color;  then  add  one  cup  of 
boiling  water  and  one  teaspoonful  of  salt ;  boil  a  minute  longer,  bottle 
and  keep  corked.  One  tablespoonful  will  color  a  clear  soup,  and  it 
can  be  used  for  jellies,  gravies  and  sauces. 

VEGETABLES. 

Miss  Corson's  Rules  for  Vegetables. — There  is  no  better 
authority  than  Miss  Corson  on  cooking,  and  her  method  for  pre- 
paring vegetables  is  as  follows :  Spinach  is  an  excellent  dish  when 
well  cooked ;  take  two  quarts,  wash,  boil  for  two  minutes  in  salted 
boiling  water,  drain,  chop  and  heat  in  a  frying-pan  for  two  minutes 
with  an  ounce  each  of  butter  and  flour ;  half  a  pint  of  meat  broth  is 
added,  the  compound  is  stirred  and  heated  for  five  minutes,  and  served 
with  small  pieces  of  fried  bread.  Second  only  to  spinach  are  beet- 
sprouts,  which  will  soon  put  forth  their  tender  claims  for  considera- 
tion ;  we  all  know  them  boiled,  but  after  they  are  boiled  they  gain  in 
flavor  by  being  fried  for  two  or  three  minutes  in  butter.  New  cab- 
bage scalded  five  minutes  in  fast-boiling  water,  coarsely  chopped, 
sprinkled  with  flour,  salt  and  pepper,  and  gently  stewed  for  five  min- 
utes with  milk  or  cream  enough  to  cover  it,  is  good.  So,  too,  is  red 
cabbage  sliced,  thrown  for  fifteen  minutes  into  scalding  salted  water 
and  vinegar,  then  drained,  and  fried  five  minutes  with  butter,  and 
served  with  a  little  hot  meat  gravy.  Lettuce,  which  seems  devoted 
to  "salad  days,"  is  excellent  stuffed;  it  is  well. washed  in  salted  cold 
water,  the  roots  trimmed  off,  two  tablespoonfuls  of  cooked  force-meat 
of  any  kind,  or  chopped  cold  meat  highly  seasoned,  inclosed  within 
the  leaves  which  are  bound  together  with  tape  or  strips  of  cloth ; 
several  heads  thus  prepared  are  placed  in  a  saucepan,  covered  with 
broth  or  cold  gravy  well  seasoned,  and  set  over  the  fire  to  simmer 


454  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

about  five  minutes;  the  tapes  are  then  removed  and  the  lettuce  heads 
and  sauce  are  served  hot.  A  hnk  between  cabbage  and  lettuce  are 
Brussels  sprouts,  those  tender,  baby  cabbages,  which,  stewed  in 
cream,  or  quickly  fried  in  butter,  almost  incline  one's  thoughts  to 
vegetarianism. 

Beets  are  familiar  enough  boiled  and  sliced,  either  served  hot  with 
butter,  pepper  and  salt,  or  pickled,  but  a  novelty  is  a  beet  pudding, 
made  by  mixing  a  pint  of  cooked  sugar-beets,  chopped,  with  four 
eggs,  a  quart  of  milk,  a  little  salt  and  pepper,  a  tablespoonful  of  butter, 
and  baking  them  about  half  an  hour ;  cold  boiled  beets  sliced  and 
fried  with  butter  are  palatable ;  to  cook  them  so  that  none  of  their 
color  shall  be  lost,  carefully  wash  them  without  breaking  the  skin  or 
cutting  off  the  roots  or  stalks,  and  boil  them  until  tender,  about  an 
hour,  in  boiling  salted  water. 

Turnips,  either  white  or  yellow,  stewed  in  gravy,  are  excellent. 
Choose  a  quart  of  small,  even  size ;  peel  them ;  boil  them  fifteen  min- 
utes in  well-salted  boiling  water;  drain  them;  put  them  into  a  frying- 
pan  with  sufficient  butter  to  prevent  burning ;  brown  them ;  stir  in  a 
tablespoonful  of  flour ;  cover  them  with  hot  water ;  add  a  palatable 
seasoning  of  salt  and  pepper,  and  stew  them  gently  until  tender.  Or 
peel  and  cut  them  in  small,  regular  pieces ;  brown  them  over  the  fire 
with  a  little  butter  and  a  slight  sprinkling  of  sugar;  add  salt  and 
pepper,  and  boiling  water  enough  to  cover  them,  and  gently  stew  them 
until  tender;  serve  them  hot. 

Parsnips  are  not  sufficiently  appreciated,  perhaps  because  of  their 
too  sweet  taste ;  but  this  can  be  overcome  to  a  palatable  extent  by 
judicious  cookery  ;  they  are  excellent  when  sliced,  after  boiling  and 
warmed  in  a  sauce  made  by  mixing  flour,  butter  and  milk  over  the 
fire  and  seasoning  it  with  salt  and  pepper ;  as  soon  as  warm  they  are 
served  with  a  little  chopped  parsley  and  a  squeeze  of  lemon-juice. 
For  parsnips  fried  brown  in  an  old-fashioned  iron  pot  with  slices  of 
salt  pork  and  a  seasoning  of  salt  and  pepper,  several  good  words 
might  be  said. 

Carrots  boiled  and  mashed  and  warmed  with  butter,  pepper  and 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  455 

salt  deserve  to  be  known ;  or  sliced  and  quickly  browned  in  butter ; 
or  tossed  for  five  minutes  over  the  fire  with  chopped  onion,  parsley, 
butter,  seasonings  and  sufficient  gravy  to  moisten  them ;  or  boiled, 
quartered,  heated  with  cream,  seasoned,  and,  at  the  moment  of  serv- 
ing, thickened  with  the  yolk  of  eggs.  • 

Onions  are  capital  when  sliced  and  quickly  fried  in  plenty  of  smok- 
ing hot  fat,  or  roasted  whole  until  tender,  and  served  with  butter, 
pepper  and  salt ;  or  chosen  while  still  small,  carefully  peeled  without 
breaking,  browned  in  butter,  and  then  simmered  tender  with  just  boil- 
ing water  enough  to  cover  them ;  or  boiled  tender  in  broth  and  then 
heated  five  minutes  in  nicely-seasoned  cream. 

Oyster-plant,  scraped  under  cold  water,  boiled  tender  in  salted 
water  containing  a  trace  of  vinegar,  and  then  heated  with  a  little 
♦  highly-seasoned  melted  butter,  is  excellent ;  the  tender  leaves  which 
it  often  bears  make  a  nice  salad.  Somewhat  like  oyster-plant  are 
Jerusalem  artichokes  and  like  oyster-plant,  they  must  be  peeled 
under  water,  boiled  tender,  and  then  served  with  melted  butter,  or 
quickly  browned  in  butter,  either  plain  or  with  chopped  herbs,  or 
served  with  an  acid  sauce  of  any  kind. 

Celery  we  know  best  in  its  uncooked  state,  but  it  is  very  good 
stewed  in  any  brown  or  white  gravy  or  sauce,  or  rolled  in  fritter  batter 
and  fried  brown. 

.  Squash  and   pumpkin   are  very  good  either   boiled,  sliced,  and 
broiled  or  fried,  or  made  into  fritters  like  oyster-plant. 

Potatoes,  most  important  of  all  hardy  vegetables,  must  close  the 
list.  Lives  there  a  cook  with  soul  so  dead  as  not  to  be  willing  to 
expend  all  the  powers  of  fire,  water  and  salt  to  produce  mealy  pota- 
toes? If  so,  the  writing  of  her  epitaph  Avould  be  a  cheerful  task. 
And  if  cold  ones  are  left  they  can  rehabilitate  themselves  in  favor  by 
appearing  chopped,  moistened  with  white  sauce  or  cream,  and  either 
fried  in  butter  or  baked  quickly,  with  a  covering  of  bread-crumbs. 
Steam-fried,  that  is  sliced  raw,  put  into  a  covered  pan  over  the  fire, 
with  butter  and  seasoning,  and  kept  covered  until  tender,  with  only 
enough  stirring  to  prevent  burning,  they  are  capital.     To  fry  them 


456  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Lyonnaise  style,  they  are  cooled  in  their  jackets  to  keep  them  whole, 
sliced  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch  thick,  browned  in  butter  with  a 
little  sliced  onion,  sprinkled  with  chopped  parsley,  pepper  and  salt, 
and  served  hot.  Larded,  they  have  bits  of  fat  ham  or  bacon  inserted 
in  them,  and  ere  baked  tender.  Note  well  that  the  more  expeditiously 
a  baked  potato  is  cooked  and  eaten  the  better  it  will  be. 

Time-Table  for  Boiling. — The  time  for  boiling  green  vegetables 
depends  much  upon  the  age  and  time  they  have  been  gathered.  The 
younger  and  more  freshly  gathered,  the  more  quickly  they  are 
cooked. 

Below  is  a  very  good  time-table  for  amateur  cooks. 

Potatoes  boiled,  thirty  minutes. 

Potatoes  baked,  forty-five  minutes. 

Sweet  potatoes  boiled,  fifty  minutes.  • 

Sweet  potatoes  baked,  sixty  minutes. 

Squash  boiled,  twenty-five  minutes. 

Green  peas  boiled,  twenty  to  forty  minutes. 

Shelled  beans  boiled,  sixty  minutes. 

String-beans  boiled,  one  to  two  hours. 

Green  corn,  thirty  to  sixty  minutes. 

Asparagus,  fifteen  to  thirty  minutes. 

Spinach,  one  to  two  hours. 

Tomatoes,  fresh,  one  hour. 

Tomatoes,  canned,  thirty  minutes. 

Cabbage,  forty-five  minutes  to  two  hours. 

Cauliflower,  one  or  two  hours. 

Dandelions,  two  or  three  hours. 
Vegetables  judiciously  used  are  healthful.      Beans  and  peas  are 
preferable  to  potatoes,  as  they  contain  four  times  as  much  nutritive 
matter.     Potatoes  that  are  pared  before  they  are  boiled  are  nearly  all 
starch,  and  produce  fat. 

Tomatoes. — The  tomato  is  so  valuable  a  vegetable  that  it  is  well 
worth  knowing  how  to  keep  them.  If  they  are  picked  when  just  ripe 
and  with  a  portion  of  the  stems  retained,  and  at  once  covered  with  a 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  457 

brine  composed  of  k  teacup  of  salt  dissolved  in  a  gallon  of  water, 
they  can  be  kept  nearly  all  the  year  without  noticeable  loss  of  their 
freshness  of  taste. 

Tomatoes,  if  very  ripe,  will  skin  easily;  if  not,  pour  scalding  water 
on  them  and  let  them  remain  in  it  four  or  five  minutes.  Peel  and 
put  them  in  a  stewpan,  with  a  tablespoonful  of  water,  if  not  very 
juicy;  if  so,  no  water  will  be  required.  Put  in  a  little  salt  and  stew 
them  for  half  an  hour;  then  turn  them  into  a  deep  dish  with  buttered 
toast.  Another  way  of  cooking  them,  which  is  considered  very  nice 
by  epicures,  is  to  put  them  in  a  deep  dish  with  fine  bread-crumbs, 
crackers  pounded  fine,  a  layer  of  each  alternately ;  put  small  bits 
of  butter,  a  little  salt  and  pepper  on  each  layer ;  some  cooks  add  a 
little  nutmeg  and  sugar.  Have  a  layer  of  bread-crumbs  on  the  top. 
Bake  it  three-quarters  of  an  hour. 

To  Broil  Tomatoes. — Cut  off  the  green  part  of  the  stem  and  place 
the  tomatoes  on  a  gridiron  over  hot  coals,  and  cover  with  a  pan  or 
lid.  They  are  to  be  cooked  slowly.  When  done,  take  up,  dress  very 
liberally  with  butter,  salt,  and  pepper. 

To  Can  Tomatoes. — Wash  clean,  drain  dry,  or  wipe;  place  them 
in  a  colander,  pour  boiling  water  over  them ;  peel,  cut  off  all  the 
green  part  and  stew  until  they  are  perfectly  heated  through.  If  you 
use  tin  cans  make  thin,  long  rolls  of  putty;  fill  the  cans,  put  on  the 
lids,  lay  the  rolls  of  putty  in  the  grooves  and  smooth  them  with  a 
knife.  Canned  fruit  should  always  be  kept  in  a  cool,  dry  place — not 
in  a  cellar. 

To  Boil  Green  Corn. — Trim  off  all  the  husks,  and  put  the  ears 
into  boiling  water,  with  a  tablespoonful  of  salt  to  a  dozen  ears.  If 
the  fire  is  brisk,  tender  corn  will  be  done  in  fifteen  minutes,  other- 
wise in  half  an  hour.  Lay  a  napkin  on  a  large  dish,  and  after  drain- 
ing off  the  water  from  the  corn,  lay  it  on,  turning  the  corners  of 
the  napkin  over  it  to  keep  it  warm. 

Sweet  Corn. — Corn  is  much  sweeter  to  be  boiled  on  the  cob.  If 
made  into  succotash,  cut  it  from  the  cobs,  and  boil  it  with  Lima  beans 
and  a  few  slices  of  salt  pork.  It  requires  boiling  from  fifteen  to  thirty 
minutes,  according  to  its  age. 


458  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

To  Cook  Egg-plant  [Mrs.  Taylor's  recipe). — Peel  it,  cut  it  in  slices 
about  half  an  inch  thick;  spread  salt  over  each  slice,  putting  one 
slice  on  top  of  each  other;  let  it  lie  two  hours,  then  wash  the  salt  off 
of  it  in  cold  water,  dry  it  with  a  towel.  Beat  two  or  three  eggs, 
dip  the  egg-plant  in  the  &^^,  then  dip  each  slice  in  rolled  cracker ; 
have  a  round  pot  with  boiling  hot  lard  in  it,  and  drop  in  the  slices 
of  egg-plant — just  as  you  would  fry  doughnuts. 

Egg-plant. — Cut  the  egg-plant  in  slices  an  inch  thick,  and  let  it 
lie  for  several  hours  in  salted  water  to  remove  the  bitter  taste.  To 
fry  it,  put  the  slices  in  the  frying-pan  with  a  small  quantity  of  butter, 
and  turn  them  when  one  side  is  done.  Be  sure  that  they  are 
thoroughly  cooked.  Stuffed  egg-plant  is  sometimes  preferred  to  fried. 
Peel  the  plant  whole,  cut  it  in  two,  and  let  it  lie  in  salted  water. 
Then  scoop  out  the  inside  of  the  plant,  chop  it  up  fine,  mixing 
crumbs  of  bread,  salt  and  butter  with  it ;  fry  it,  return  it  to  the  hol- 
low egg-plant,  join  the  cut  pieces  together,  and  let  them  bake  a  while 
in  the  oven. 

Baked  Egg-plant. — Boil  them  whole  ten  minutes  ;  then  cut  them 
in  half,  and  take  out  the  seed.  Make  a  stuffing  of  bread,  butter,  pep- 
per, salt  and  one  c^'g ;  close  them,  tie  them  with  a  string,  put  water 
in  the  pan,  let  them  cook  slowly  half  an  hour,  basting  them  with 
butter;  thicken  the  gravy,  and  put  it  over  them  on  the  dish. 

Succotash. — Take  small  white  beans,  soak  them  twelve  hours,  and 
then  put  them  on  to  boil.  When  half  done,  add  the  corn,  and  let 
them  boil  until  soft,  when  add  butter,  salt  and  pepper. 

Corn  Fritters. — One  teacup  of  milk,  three  eggs,  one  pint  of  green 
corn  grated,  a  little  salt,  and  as  much  flour  as  will  form  a  batter ; 
beat  the  eggs,  yolks  and  whites  separately;  to  the  yolks  of  the  eggs 
add  the  corn,  flour  and  milk,  and  add  enough  to  make  the  batter  of 
the  right  stiffness;  if  the  first  quantity  is  not  sufficient,  beat  the  whole 
hard,  and  then  stir  in  the  whites ;  a  teaspoonful  of  baking  powder 
will  improve  it ;  drop  the  batter,  a  spoonful  at  a  time,  into  hot  lard, 
and  fry  on  both  sides  a  light  brown.  They  can  be  fried  as  griddle- 
cakes  with  less  lard  or  grease.     They  can  be  eaten  warm  or  hot, 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  459 

with  butter  for  sauce ;  a  less   number  of  eggs  can  be  used  if  they 
are  scarce. 

Asparagus  (i). — Great  attention  is  necessary  to  boil  asparagus;  it 
must  be  carefully  washed  and  cleaned,  the  horny  part  must  be  cut 
away,  leaving  only  enough  to  take  it  up  with  the  fingers.  After  the 
white  horny  part  has  been  well  scraped,  cut  the  mall  off  at  one  length, 
and  tie  them  up  in  separate  bundles ;  lay  them  in  boiling  water, 
with  a  little  salt.  Boil  them  briskly,  and  they  are  done  enough  when 
tender.  Dip  a  round  of  toasted  bread  in  the  liquor,  and  lay  it  in 
the  dish  ;  then  pour  some  melted  butter  over  the  toast,  and  lay  the 
asparagus  on  the  toast  entirely  round  the  dish.  Serve  with  melted 
butter  in  a  sauce-tureen. 

Asparagus  (2). — Wash  the  asparagus,  tie  the  stalks  of  the  same 
size  together,  and  put  them  on  to  boil  in  hot  water,  in  which  a  little 
salt  has  been  sprinkled.  They  will  cook  in  about  fifteen  minutes. 
When  soft,  take  them  up  carefully  into  the  dish  in  which  they  will 
be  served ;  cut  the  strings,  and  draw  them  out  so  as  not  to  break  the 
asparagus.     Butter,  salt  and  pepper  it. 

Macaroni. — Boil  the  macaroni  in  water  enough  to  cover  it 
until  it  is  tender,  then  drain  off  the  water.  Put  a  layer  of  macaroni 
in  a  dish,  then  a  layer  of  grated  cheese,  three  layers  of  macaroni  and 
two  of  cheese ;  for  the  top  beat  the  yolks  of  two  eggs  with  a  little 
milk,  and  pour  over  the  macaroni;  bake  until  nicely  browned. 

There  are  many  ways  of  cooking  macaroni  besides  the  above  way 
of  boiling  it  in  water  and  baking  it  afterward  with  grated  cheese, 
bread-crumbs,  butter  and  seasoning  of  salt  and  pepper.  This  is  very 
nice,  but  if  the  cheese  chosen  was  always  Parmesan  it  vvould  be 
much  more  palatable. 

The  Italians  cook  macaroni  and  serve  it  with  a  tomato  sauce 
which  is  very  excellent,  and  is  sold  now  in  Italian  groceries  in  cans, 
already  prepared  to  pour  over  the  boiled  macaroni.  Macaroni 
stewed  in  milk  is  a  good  and  wholesome  dish  for  children,  especially 
in  summer. 

An  excellent  way  to  serve  macaroni  is  the  following :  Fill  a  china 


460  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

baking-dish  with  alternate  layers  of  oysters  and  boiled  macaroni ; 
season  each  layer  with  salt,  pepper  and  butter.  When  the  dish  is 
full  cover  with  cracker-crumbs.  Pour  over  all  a  cup  of  oyster  juice, 
and  bake  in  a  quick  oven  till  brown. 

Macaroni  and  kidneys  are  thus  prepared :  Scald  two  veal  kidneys 
which  have  been  skinned  and  freed  from  fat ;  cut  them  in  slices  and 
fry  brown ;  then  place  them  in  a  baking-dish,  season  with  salt  and 
pepper,  cover  them  with  macaroni  and  cracker-crumbs,  and  pour 
over  the  whole  a  gravy  made  with  tomatoes.  Bake  in  a  quick  oven 
till  brown.  Vermicelli  and  Italian  paste  should  always  be  boiled 
separately,  and  added  to  the  soup  just  before  it  is  served. 

How  to  Peel  Onions. — In  peeling  onions  put  a  large  needle  in 
the  mouth,  half  in  and  half  out.  The  needle  attracts  the  juice  of  the 
bulb,  and  any  number  may  be  peeled  without  affecting  the  eyes. 

Cauliflower  should  be  wrapped  in  cloth  when  boiled ;  serve  with 
melted  butter. 

Fried  Oyster-plant. — Scrape  the  roots  as  you  would  parsnips ; 
boil  them  tender;  then  mash  them,  and  add  an  egg  and  some  rolled 
soda-cracker.     Make  into  cakes  and  fry  in  butter.     Serve  hot. 

To  Cook  Hominy. — Corn  hulled  by  machinery,  leaving  the  grain 
nearly  whole,  makes  the  best  hominy,  and  in  the  Southern  States  it 
is  as  much  the  standard  breakfast  and  dinner  dish  as  potatoes  are  in 
the  North,  and  it  is  far  more  nutritive  and  wholesome.  It  is  cooked 
as  follows :  Put  your  hominy  in  soak  over-night  in  tepid  water.  Boil 
it  gently  in  a  porcelain  or  tinned  kettle  at  least  two  hours,  in  the 
same  water,  adding  more  if  necessary,  and  taking  care  not  to  let  it 
scorch,  and  that  the  water  is  absorbed  when  taken  off  Keep  it  in  the 
same  vessel,  warming  it  over  from  time  to  time  until  consumed. 
Neither  salt  nor  butter  should  be  added  while  cooking. 

Parsnips. — Wash  the  parsnips,  scrape  them  thoroughly,  and,  with 
the  point  of  the  knife,  remove  any  black  specks  about  them;  and, 
should  they  be  very  large,  cut  the  thick  part  into  quarters.  Put  them 
into  a  saucepan  of  boiling  water,  salted  in  the  proportion  of  one  tea- 
spoonful  of  salt  to  half  a  gallon  of  water.     Boil  them  rapidly  until 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  46I 

tender,  which  may  be  ascertained  by  thrusting  a  fork  into  them;  take 
them  up,  drain  them,  and  serve  in  a  vegetable  dish.  This  vegetable 
is  usually  served  with  salt  fish,  boiled  pork,  or  boiled  beef;  when 
sent  to  table  with  the  latter,  a  few  should  be  placed  alternately  with 
carrots  round  the  dish  as  a  garnish.  Cook  large  parsnips,  one  to  one 
hour  and  a  half;  small  ones,  one-half  to  one  hour. 

Boiled  Green  Peas. — To  each  half-gallon  of  water  allow  one 
small  teaspoonful  of  moist  sugar,  one  heaped  tablespoonful  of  salt. 
This  delicious  vegetable,  to  be  eaten  in  perfection,  should  be  young, 
and  not  gathered  or  shelled  long  before  it  is  dressed.  Shell  the  peas, 
wash  them  well  in  cold  water,  and  drain  them  ;  then  put  them  into  a 
saucepan  with  plenty  of  fast-boiling  water,  to  which  salt  and  moist 
sugar  have  been  added  in  the  above  proportion  ;  let  them  boil  quickly 
over  a  brisk  fire,  with  the  lid  of  the  saucepan  uncovered,  and  be  care- 
ful that  the  smoke  does  not  draw  in.  When  tender,  pour  them  into 
a  colander;  put  them  into  a  hot  vegetable-dish,  and  quite  in  the  centre 
of  the  peas  place  a  piece  of  butter  the  size  of  a  walnut.  Many  cooks 
boil  a  small  bunch  of  mint  with  the  peas,  or  garnish  them  with  it,  by 
boiling  a  few  sprigs  in  a  saucepan  by  themselves.  Should  the  peas 
be  very  old,  and  difficult  to  boil  a  good  color,  a  very  tiny  piece  of 
soda  may  be  thrown  in  the  water  previous  to  putting  them  in ;  but 
this  must  be  very  sparingly  used,  as  it  causes  the  peas,  when  boiled, 
to  have  a  mashed  and  broken  appearance.  With  young  peas  there 
is  not  the  slightest  occasion  to  use  it.  Cook  young  peas  ten  to  fifteen 
minutes  ;  the  large  sorts,  such  as  marrowfats,  etc.,  eighteen  to  twenty- 
four  minutes;  old  peas,  half  an  hour. 

To  Dress  Salsify. — To  each  half-gallon  of  water  allow  one  heaped 
tablespoonful  of  salt,  one  ounce  of  butter,  two  tablespoonfuls  of 
lemon-juice.  Scrape  the  roots  gently,  so  as  to  strip  them  only  of 
their  outside  peel ;  cut  them  into  pieces  about  four  inches  long,  and, 
as  they  are  peeled,  throw  them  into  water  with  which  has  been 
mixed  a  little  lemon-juice,  to  prevent  their  discoloring.  Then  put  them 
into  boiling  water,  with  salt,  butter  and  lemon-juice  in  the  above  pro- 
portion, and  let  them  boil  rapidly  until  tender ;  try  them  with  a  fork, 
29 


462  THE  hearthstone;    or,  life  at  home. 

and  when  it  penetrates  easily  they  are  done.  Drain  the  salsify,  and 
serve  with  good  white  sauce,  or  French  melted  butter.  Cook  thirty 
to  fifty  minutes. 

Note. — This  vegetable  may  be  also  boiled,  sliced,  and  fried  in  a 
batter  of  nice  brown.  When  crisp  and  a  good  color,  it  should  be 
served  with  fried  parsley  in  the  centre  of  the  dish,  and  a  little  fine  salt 
sprinkled  over  the  salsify. 

Boiled  Cabbage. — To  each  half-gallon  of  water  allow  one  heaped 
tablespoonful  of  salt,  a  very  small  piece  of  soda.  Pick  off  all  the 
dead  outside  leaves,  cut  off  as  much  of  the  stalk  as  possible,  and  cut 
the  cabbages  twice  across  the  stalk  end ;  if  they  should  be  very  large, 
quarter  them.  Wash  them  well  in  cold  water,  place  them  in  a 
colander,  and  drain ;  then  put  them  into  plenty  of  fast-boiling  water, 
to  which  have  been  added  salt  and  soda  in  the  above  proportions. 
Stir  them  down  once  or  twice  in  the  water,  keep  the  pan  uncovered, 
and  let  them  boil  quickly  until  tender.  The  instant  they  are  done 
take  them  up  into  a  colander,  place  a  plate  over  them,  let  them 
thoroughly  drain,  dish  and  serve.  Cook  large  cabbages,  or  Savoys, 
one-half  to  three-quarters  of  an  hour;  young  summer  cabbage,  ten 
to  twelve  minutes,  after  the  water  boils. 

Boiled  Carrots. — To  each  half-gallon  of  water  allow  one  heaped 
tablespoonful  of  salt.  Cut  off  the  green  tops,  wash  and  scrape  the 
carrots,  and,  should  there  be  any  black  specks,  remove  them.  If  very 
large,  cut  them  in  halves,  divide  them  lengthwise  into  four  pieces, 
and  put  them  into  boiling  water,  salted  in  the  above  proportion ;  let 
them  boil  until  tender,  which  may  be  ascertained  by  thrusting  a  fork 
into  them  ;  dish,  and  serve  very  hot.  This  vegetable  is  an  indispen- 
sable accompaniment  to  boiled  beef  When  thus  served  it  is  usually 
boiled  with  the  beef  A  few  carrots  are  placed  round  the  dish  as  a 
garnish,  and  the  remainder  sent  to  table  in  a  vegetable-dish.  Young 
carrots  do  not  require  nearly  so  much  boiling,  nor  should  they  be 
divided.  These  make  a  nice  addition  to  stewed  veal,  etc.  Large 
carrots  should  cook  one  hour  and  three-quarters  to  two  hours  and 
•a  quarter;  young  ones,  about  half  an  hour. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  463 

White  Beans. — Beans  are  deliciously  prepared,  without  grease  of 
any  kind,  as  follows  :  Boil  slowly  in  soft  water,  in  a  covered  vessel,  two 
or  three  hours,  or  until  the  beans  begin  to  fall  to  pieces,  and  the 
water  (which  should  barely  fill  the  beans  when  done,  and  not  stand 
above  them)  is  viscid  and  jelly-like.  Add  a  very  little  salt,  and 
nothing  else,  unless  you  have  chosen  at  the  proper  time  to  put  in  a 
few  pared  potatoes  to  eat  with  them. 

Lima  Beans. — They  should  be  gathered  young.  Shell  them,  lay 
them  in  a  pan  of  cold  water,  and  then  boil  them  about  two  hours, 
till  they  are  quite  soft.  Drain  them  well,  and  add  to  them  some 
butter. 

Note. — Never  use  strong  or  rancid  butter  in  seasoning  vegetables. 

Chartreuse  of  Vegetables. — Line  a  plain  mould  or  a  two-quart 
tin  basin  with  very  thin  slices  of  raw  bacon;  have  prepared  some 
half-boiled  string-beans,  carrots  and  turnips.  Cut  the  latter  into  small 
slices,  and  scatter  them  all  around  the  edges  and  bottom  of  the  pan, 
about  an  inch  thick;  fill  up  the  middle  with  some  chopped  veal,  or 
with  mixed  chopped  potatoes  and  cabbage,  or  cauliflower.  Put  a 
plate  over  the  top  of  the  mould,  tie  a  cloth  over  that,  and  put  it  into  a 
steamer  for  an  hour  and  a  half  Turn  out  upon  a  platter,  and  serv^e 
with  cream  or  white  sauce. 

To  Cook.  Greens. — This  is  the  simplest  of  dishes,  and  yet  it  is 
not  always  a  well-served  one.  Greens  should  be  properly  boiled ; 
the  water  should  be  soft,  and  a  tablespoonful  of  salt  added  to  a  large- 
sized  pot  of  it,  which  should  be  boiling  hot  when  the  greens  are 
thrown  in.  It  should  be  kept  boiling  until  they  are  done,  which  can 
be  told  by  their  sinking  to  the  bottom  of  the  pot,  and  then  they 
should  be  skimmed  out  as  quickly  as  possible  into  a  colander,  so  that 
all  the  water  will  run  out.  Press  them  with  a  small  plate,  then  turn 
upon  a  platter;  add  a  large  piece  of  butter,  and  cut  up  fine.  Serve 
smoking  hot. 

To  Boil  Potatoes. — Ten  or  twelve  potatoes;  to  each  half-gallon 
of  water  allow  one  heaped  tablespoonful  of  salt.  Choose  potatoes 
of  an  equal  size,  pare  them,  take  out  all  the  eyes  and  specks,  and,  as 


464  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at   home. 

they  are  peeled,  throw  them  into  cold  water.  Put  them  into  a  sauce- 
pan, with  sufficient  cold  water  to  cover  them,  with  salt  in  the  above 
proportion,  and  let  them  boil  gently  until  tender.  Ascertain  when 
they  are  done  by  thrusting  a  fork  in  them,  and  take  them  up  the 
moment  they  feel  soft  through  ;  for  if  they  are  left  in  the  water  after- 
ward, they  become  waxy  or  watery.  Drain  away  the  water ;  put  the 
saucepan  by  the  side  of  the  fire  with  the  lid  partially  uncovered,  to 
allow  the  steam  to  escape,  and  let  the  potatoes  get  thoroughly  dry, 
and  do  not  allow  them  to  get  burnt.  Their  superfluous  moisture 
will  evaporate,  and  the  potatoes,  if  a  good  sort,  should  be  perfectly 
mealy  and  dry.  Potatoes  vary  so  much  in  quality  and  size  that  it  is 
difficult  to  give  the  exact  time  for  boiling;  they  should  be  attentively 
watched,  and  probed  with  a  fork  to  ascertain  when  they  are  cooked. 
Send  them  to  table  quickly,  and  very  hot,  with  an  opening  in  the 
cover  of  the  dish,  that  a  portion  of  the  steam  may  evaporate,  and  not 
fall  back  on  the  potatoes.  Moderate-sized  old  potatoes  will  cook  in 
fifteen  to  twenty  minutes  after  the  water  boils;  large  ones,  half  an 
hour  to  thirty-five  minutes. 

Note. — To  keep  potatoes  hot  after  draining  the  water  from  them, 
put  a  folded  cloth  or  flannel  (kept  for  the  purpose)  on  the  top  of  them, 
keeping  the  saucepan-lid  partially  uncovered.  This  will  absorb  the 
moisture,  and  keep  them  hot  some  time  without  spoiling. 

How  to  use  Cold  Potatoes. — To  every  pound  of  cold  potatoes 
allow  two  tablespoonfuls  of  flour,  two  ditto  of  minced  onions,  one 
ounce  of  butter,  milk.  Mash  the  potatoes  with  a  fork  until  perfectly 
free  from  lumps ;  stir  in  the  other  ingredients,  and  add  sufficient  milk 
to  moisten  them  well;  press  the  potatoes  in  a  mould,  and  bake  in  a 
moderate  oven  until  nicely  browned,  which  will  be  in  from  twenty 
minutes  to  half  an  hour.  Turn  them  out  of  the  mould,  and  serve. 
Cook  twenty  minutes  to  half  an  hour. 

Fried  Potatoes  {French  fashion). — Potatoes,  hot  butter  or  clarified 
dripping,  salt.  Peel  and  cut  the  potatoes  into  thin  slices,  as  nearly 
the  same  size  as  possible ;  make  some  butter  or  dripping  quite  hot  in 
a  frying-pan ;  put  in  the  potatoes  and  fry  them  on  both  sides  of  a  nice 


COOKERY    RECIPES,  465 

brown.  When  they  are  crisp  and  done,  take  them  up,  place  them 
on  a  cloth  before  the  fire  to  drain  the  grease  from  them,  and  serve 
very  hot,  after  sprinkling  them  with  salt.  These  are  delicious  with 
rumpsteak,  and,  in  France,  are  frequently  served  thus  as  a  breakfast 
dish.  The  remains  of  cold  potatoes  may  also  be  sliced  and  fried  by 
the  above  recipe,  but  the  slices  must  be  cut  a  little  thicker.  Sliced 
raw  potatoes  should  fry  five  minutes. 

Baked  Potatoes. — Choose  large  potatoes,  as  much  of  a  size  as 
possible ;  wash  them  in  lukewarm  water,  and  scrub  them  well,  for 
the  browned  skin  of  a  baked  potato  is  by  many  persons  considered 
the  better  part  of  it.  Put  them  into  a  moderate  oven,  and  bake 
them  for  about  two  hours,  turning  them  three  or  four  times  whilst 
they  are  cooking.  Serve  them  in  a  napkin  immediately  they  are 
done,  as  if  kept  a  long  time  in  the  oven  they  have  a  shrivelled  ap- 
pearance. Do  not  forget  to  send  to  table  with  them  a  piece  of  cold 
butter. 

Large  potatoes  will  require  to  be  cooked  in  a  hot  oven  one  and 
a  half  hour  to  two  hours ;  in  a  cool  oven,  two  to  two  and  one-half 
hours. 

Rice. — For  a  side-dish  with  roast  meats,  put  a  cup  of  rice  into 
cold  water  with  a  spoonful  of  salt;  keep  it  covered  while  boiling  that 
the  grains  may  swell,  and  do  not  stir  it  much  after  it  is  cooked,  as 
it  looks  better  when  the  grains  are  whole.  Add  a  cup  of  milk  and  a 
lump  of  butter  just  before  serving. 

Canning  Corn. — Shave  the  corn  from  the  cob,  fill  the  cans  as  full 
as  you  can  with  corn,  then  pour  in  cold  water  until  even  full ;  make 
a  small  hole  in  the  cover  and  solder  on  it.  Place  the  cans  in  a  boiler 
with  cold  water  about  half  the  height  of  the  cans.  Place  the  boiler 
on  the  stove,  and  boil  four  hours ;  then  remove  them  from  the  boiler 
and  drop  a  little  solder  on  the  hole  in  the  cover. 

To  Dry  Green  Corn. — On  a  warm,  bright  day  take  a  shallow  box, 
set  slanting,  where  the  sun  will  shine  full  upon  it.  Spread  clean 
cloths  in  your  box.  Prepare  your  corn  as  you  like,  and  spread  it 
evenly  over  the  bottom  of  the  box ;  then  cover  very  closely  with  a 


466  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

window-sash.  The  heat  will  be  so  great  no  fly  can  live.  Your  corn 
will  dry  in  one  day  and  be  perfectly  clean. 

HiGDUM. — Four  quarts  of  cucumbers  chopped  fine  with  skins  on ; 
add  two  quarts  of  chopped  onions;  mix  in  a  handful  of  salt,  and  let 
it  drain  six  hours.  Then  add  one  gill  of  sweet  oil,  one  pint  of  Madeira 
wine,  a  tablespoonful  of  black  pepper,  one  of  cayenne,  one  of  mustard- 
seed,  one  of  flour  of  mustard.  Put  it  in  a  stone  jar,  and  cover  with 
strong  vinegar. 

Fried  Celery. — Boil  the  celery  entire  until  tender;  drain  it,  divide 
into  small  pieces  and  fry  in  dripping  until  lightly  browned. 

Boiled  Onions,  to  be  free  of  strong  odor,  should  be  boiled  in  salted 
water  for  ten  minutes,  and  then  put  in  cold  fresh  water  for  half  an 
hour;  after  that  they  should  be  put  into  a  stewpan  with  just  enough 
cold  fresh  water  to  cover  them,  and  boiled  gently  till  tender.  Drain 
and  serve  with  melted  butter. 

EGGS,  OMELETS,  ETC. 

Egg-baskets  (a  nice  breakfast  dish). — Make  them  the  day  after 
having  roast  turkey  or  chicken  for  dinner.  Boil  six  eggs  hard,  re- 
move the  shells,  cut  neatly  in  halves,  and  extract  the  yolks.  Rub 
them  to  a  paste,  with  some  melted  butter,  pepper  and  salt,  and  set 
aside.  Pound  the  minced  meat  of  the  cold  fowl  finely,  and  mix  with 
the  egg-paste,  moistening  with  a  little  melted  butter  or  gravy  left 
from  the  roast.  Cut  off  a  slice  from  the  bottom  of  the  hollowed 
white,  to  make  them  stand ;  fill  with  the  paste,  arrange  close  together 
on  a  flat  dish,  and  pour  over  the  rest  of  the  gravy  left  from  the  roast, 
heated  boiling  hot  and  enriched  by  a  few  spoonfuls  of  cream. 

To  keep  Eggs  Fresh. — One  of  the  best  means  of  preserving  eggs 
is  the  following :  Select  good  fresh  eggs  and  pack  endwise  in  a  mix- 
ture of  equal  parts  of  fine  dry  charcoal  and  salt  (cold).  Keep  in  a 
cool,  dry  place  until  required  for  use.  A  thin  coating  of  gum  or  a 
trace  of  oil  will  prevent  loss  of  moisture  through  the  shell.  The  best 
time  for  preserving  eggs  is  from  July  to  September. 

For  Testing  the  Age  of  Eggs. — Dissolve  120  grammes  of  com- 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  467 

men  salt  in  a  liter  of  water.  An  egg  put  in  this  solution  on  the  day- 
it  is  laid  will  sink  to  the  bottom ;  one  a  day  old  will  not  reach  quite 
to  the  bottom  of  the  vessel;  an  egg  three  days  old  will  swim  in  the 
liquid;  while  one  more  than  three  days  old  will  swim  on  the  surface. 

Omelet. — Five  or  six  eggs  will  make  a  good-sized  omelet ;  break 
them  into  a  basin,  and  beat  them  well  with  a  fork,  and  add  a  saltspoon- 
ful  of  salt ;  have  some  parsley  ready  chopped ;  beat  it  well  up  with  the 
eggs ;  then  take  four  ounces  of  fresh  butter,  and  break  half  of  it  into 
large  bits,  and  put  it  into  the  omelet,  and  the  other  half  into  a  very- 
clean  frying-pan ;  when  it  is  melted,  pour  in  the  omelet,  and  stir  it 
with  a  spoon  till  it  begins  to  set,  then  turn  it  up  all  round  the  edges, 
and  when  it  is  of  a  nice  brown  it  is  done.  The  safest  wav  to  take  it 
out  is  to  put  a  plate  on  the  omelet,  and  turn  the  pan  upside-down ; 
serve  it  on  a  hot  dish ;  it  should  never  be  done  till  just  wanted. 

Tomato  Omelet  (i). — Tomatoes,  thickened  with  bread-crumbs, 
seasoned  with  salt,  pepper,  chopped  parsley  and  sugar ;  add  one  egg 
to  every  pint  of  this  mixture.  Sprinkle  bread-crumbs  over  the  top, 
and  bake  forty  minutes;  a  nice  dinner  vegetable. 

Tomato  Omelet  (2). — Beat  up  six  eggs,  mix  two  tablespoon- 
fuls  of  flour  with  a  little  milk,  and  add  pepper  and  salt  to  taste.  Peel 
and  chop  very  fine  four  tomatoes,  stir  all  together,  and  fry  in  butter. 

Oyster  Omelet  is  made  in  the  same  way,  using  oysters  instead 
of  tomatoes. 

Washington  Omelet. — Make  four  omelets  of  three  eggs  each, 
adding  to  one  two  chopped,  tart  apples ;  to  another,  chopped,  cold 
boiled  ham ;  to  another,  an  assortment  of  fine  herbs — a  small  pinch 
of  each — and  the  fourth  omelet  plain,  or  with  asparagus  or  cauli- 
flower, in  their  season.  Serve  on  the  same  dish,  one  lapping  over 
another,  and  very  hot. 

Rum  Omelet. — Make  a  plain  omelet,  with  a  little  sugar  added,  and 
when  on  the  table  pour  a  gill  or  so  of  rum  over  it,  set  fire  to  it,  let  it 
burn  as  long  as  it  can,  taking  slowly,  but  constantly,  with  a  silver 
spoon,  the  rum  from  the  sides,  and  pouring  it  on  the  middle  while  it 
i.s  burning,  and   until  it  dies  out  by  itself;   then  serve   immediately. 


468  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

Made  with  oysters  or  sweetmeats  of  any  kind  omelets  are  a  very 
popular  entree  or  side-dish  for  dinner.  With  ham,  kidneys  or  any 
kind  of  meat  they  are  proper  only  for  breakfast  dishes. 

Asparagus  Omelet. — Steam  and  cut  up  fine  the  asparagus,  in 
quantity  about  a  pint,  then  beat  the  yolks  of  five  and  the  whites  of 
three  eggs  lightly;  add  two  spoonfuls  of  cream,  mix  all,  fry  in 
omelets  and  serve  hot.  Cauliflowers  may  be  served  in  the  same 
way. 

Buttered  Eggs. — Four  new-laid  eggs,  two  ounces  of  butter.  Pro- 
cure the  eggs  new-laid,  if  possible;  break  them  into  a  basin  and  beat 
them  well ;  put  the  butter  into  another  basin,  which  place  in  boiling 
w^ater,  and  stir  till  the  butter  is  melted.  Pour  that  and  the  eggs  into 
a  lined  saucepan  ;  hold  it  over  a  gentle  fire,  and,  as  the  mixture  begins 
to  warm,  pour  it  two  or  three  times  into  the  basin  and  back  again, 
that  the  two  ingredients  may  be  well  incorporated.  Keep  stirring 
the  eggs  and  butter  one  way  until  they  are  hot,  without  boiling,  and 
serve  on  hot  buttered  toast.  If  the  mixture  is  allowed  to  boil,  it  will 
curdle,  and  so  be  entirely  spoiled. 

Stuffed  Eggs. — Boil  your  eggs  hard  and  carefully  remove  the 
shells.  Cut  off  the  small  end  of  each  egg,  and  pick  out  the  yolks. 
Put  these  latter  in  a  pan,  into  which  put  grated  crackers,  celery  seeds, 
butter,  pepper  and  salt.  Rub  well  together.  Carefully  stuff  the  eggs 
again,  and  replace  the  small  ends  previously  removed.  Stand  them 
in  a  soup-plate  or  pan,  and  grate  crackers  over  and  around  them,  and 
add  any  of  the  yolks  that  may  have  been  left  of  the  stuffing.  They 
make  a  delicious  and  rich  dish. 

Pickled  Eggs. — Boil  one  dozen  fresh  eggs  fifteen  minutes ;  put 
them  in  cold  water  to  cool ;  take  off  the  shells  and  place  them  in  a 
jar;  cover  them  with  good  vinegar;  these  are  good  in  spring,  with 
fish  or  cold  meat. 

Poached  Eggs. — Eggs  for  poaching  should  be  perfectly  fresh, 
but  not  quite  new-laid ;  those  that  are  about  thirty-six  hours  old 
are  the  best  for  the  purpose.  If  quite  new-laid,  the  white  is  so 
milky  it  is  almost  impossible  to  set  it ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  469 

egg  be  at  all  stale,  it  is  equally  difficult  to  poach  it  nicely.  Strain 
some  boiling  water  into  a  deep,  clean  frying-pan  ;  break  the  egg  into 
a  cup  without  damaging  the  yolk,  and  when  the  water  boils  remove 
the  pan  to  the  side  of  the  fire,  and  gently  slip  the  egg  into  it.  Place 
the  pan  over  a  gentle  fire  and  keep  the  water  simmering  until  the 
white  looks  nicely  set,  when  the  egg  is  ready.  Take  it  up  gently 
with  a  slice,  cut  away  the  ragged  edges  of  the  white,  and  serve  either 
on  toasted  bread  or  on  slices  of  ham  or  bacon,  or  on  spinach,  etc. 
A  poached  egg  should  not  be  overdone,  as  its  appearance  and  taste 
will  be  quite  spoiled  if  the  yolk  be  allowed  to  harden.  When  the 
egg  is  slipped  into  the  water,  the  white  should  be  gathered  together 
to  keep  it  a  little  in  form,  or  the  cup  should  be  turned  over  it  for  one- 
half  minute.  To  poach  an  egg  to  perfection  is  rather  a  difficult 
operation ;  so,  for  inexperienced  cooks,  a  tin  egg-poacher  may  be 
purchased,  which  greatly  facilitates  the  manner  of  dressing  eggs.  It 
consists  of  a  tin  plate  with  a  handle,  with  a  space  for  three  perforated 
cups.  An  egg  should  be  broken  into  each  cup,  and  the  machine  then 
placed  in  a  stewpan  of  boiling  water,  which  has  been  previously 
strained.  When  the  whites  of  the  eggs  appear  set  they  are  done, 
and  should  then  be  carefully  slipped  on  to  the  toast  or  spinach,  or 
with  whatever  they  are  served.  In  poaching  eggs  in  a  frying-pan 
never  do  more  than  four  at  a  time ;  and  when  a  little  vinegar  is 
liked  mixed  with  the  water  in  which  the  eggs  are  done,  use  one  table- 
spoonful  to  every  pint  of  water. 

To  Boil  Eggs  for  Breakfast,  Salads,  etc. — Eggs  for  boiling 
cannot  be  too  fresh,  or  boiled  too  soon  after  they  are  laid ;  but  rather 
a  longer  time  should  be  allowed  for  boiling  a  new-laid  egg  than  for 
one  that  is  three  or  four  days  old.  Have  ready  a  saucepan  of  boil- 
ing water;  put  the  eggs  into  it  gently  with  a  spoon,  letting  the  spoon 
touch  the  bottom  of  the  saucepan  before  it  is  withdrawn,  that  the 
egg  may  not  fall,  and  consequently  crack.  For  those  who  like  eggs 
lightly  boiled, three  minutes  will  be  found  sufficient;  three  and  three- 
quarters  to  four  minutes  will  be  ample  time  to  set  the  white  nicely; 
and  if  liked  hard,  six  to  seven  minutes  will  not  be  found  too  long. 


470  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Should  the  eggs  be  unusually  large,  as  those  of  black  Spanish  fowl 
sometimes  are,  allow  an  extra  one-half  minute  for  them.  Eggs  for 
salad  should  be  boiled  from  ten  minutes  to  one-quarter  hour,  and 
should  be  placed  in  a  basin  of  cold  water  for  a  few  minutes;  they 
should  then  be  rolled  on  the  table  with  the  hand,  and  the  shell  will 
peel  off  easily.  To  boil  eggs  lightly,  for  invalids  or  children,  keep 
them  on  three  minutes ;  to  boil  eggs  to  suit  the  generality  of  tastes, 
three  and  three-quarters  to  four  minutes;  to  boil  eggs  hard,  six  to 
seven  minutes;  for  salads,  ten  to  fifteen  minutes. 

Scrambled  Eggs. — Have  a  spider  hot  and  buttered ;  break  the 
eggs  into  a  dish,  being  careful  not  to  break  the  yolks ;  slip  them  into 
the  spider,  add  a  very  little  salt,  with  butter  the  size  of  a  nutmeg  for 
a  half  dozen  of  eggs,  or  three  tablespoonfuls  of  rich  cream.  When 
the  eggs  begin  to  whiten,  stir  carefully  from  the  bottom  until  cooked 
to  suit. 

Fried  Eggs. — Four  eggs,  a  quarter  pound  of  lard,  butter  or  clari- 
fied dripping.  Place  a  delicately  clean  frying-pan  over  a  gentle  fire ; 
put  in  the  fat,  and  allow  it  to  come  to  the  boiling-point.  Break  the 
eggs  into  cups,  slip  them  into  the  boiling  fat,  and  let  them  remain 
until  the  whites  are  delicately  set,  and,  whilst  they  are  frying,  ladle  a 
little  of  the  fat  over  them.  Take  them  up  with  a  slice,  drain  them  a 
minute  from  their  greasy  moisture,  trim  them  neatly,  and  serve  on 
slices  of  fried  bacon  or  ham,  or  the  eggs  may  be  placed  in  the  middle 
of  the  dish,  with  the  bacon  put  round  as  a  garnish. 

Poached  Eggs  with  Cream. — One  pint  of  water,  one  teaspoonful 
of  salt,  four  teaspoonfuls  of  vinegar,  four  fresh  eggs,  half  a  gill  of 
cream,  salt,  pepper  and  pounded  sugar  to  taste,  one  ounce  of  butter. 
Put  the  water,  vinegar  and  salt  into  a  frying-pan,  and  break  each  egg 
into  a  separate  cup;  bring  the  water,  etc.,  to  boil,  and  slip  the  eggs 
gently  into  it  without  breaking  the  yolks.  Simmer  them  from  three 
to  four  minutes,  but  not  longer,  and  with  a  slice  lift  them  out  on  to 
a  hot  dish,  and  trim  the  edges.  Empty  the  pan  of  its  contents,  put 
in  the  cream,  add  a  seasoning  to  taste,  of  pepper,  salt  and  pounded 
sugar;  bring   the  whole   to  the  boiling-point;   then  add  the  butter^ 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  47 1 

broken  into  small  pieces  ;  toss  the  pan  round  and  round  till  the  butter 
is  melted ;  pour  it  over  the  eggs  and  serve.  To  insure  the  eggs  not 
being  spoiled  whilst  the  cream,  etc.,  is  preparing,  it  is  a  good  plan  to 
warm  the  cream  with  the  butter,  etc.,  before  the  eggs  are  poached, 
so  that  it  may  be  poured  over  them  immediately  after  they  are 
dished. 

Toast  and  Eggs. — Break  three  eggs  into  a  small  stevvpan ;  add  a 
saltspoonful  of  salt,  a  quarter  of  that  quantity  of  pepper,  and  two 
ounces  of  fresh  butter  (the  fresher  the  better);  set  the  stewpan  over  a 
moderate  fire,  and  stir  the  eggs  round  with  a  wooden  spoon,  being 
careful  to  keep  every  particle  in  motion,  until  the  whole  has  be- 
come a  smooth  and  delicately  thick  substance ;  have  ready  a  con- 
venient-sized crisp  piece  of  toast,  pour  the  eggs  upon  it,  and  serve 
immediately. 

Eggs  in  Italian  Style. — Moisten  two  spoonfuls  of  flour  with 
four  ounces  of  butter  in  a  saucepan,  stirring  constantly.  When  of 
the  consistency  of  thick  cream,  thin  with  a  little  boiling  milk,  and 
add  salt  and  pepper.  Add  three  ounces  more  of  butter  and  a  little 
chopped  parsley,  worked  well  together.  Have  ready  eight  hard- 
boiled  eggs,  sliced,  and  add  to  the  same  and  serve. 

SALADS. 

Mustard  Salad. — The  following  is  an  excellent  dressing :  Take 
the  yolk  of  one  fresh  egg  and  mix  it  with  two  tablespoonfuls  of  olive 
oil,  very  slowly.  Add  one  and  one-half  spoonfuls  of  mustard, 
three  spoonfuls  of  salt,  a  little  pepper,  and,  last  of  all,  two  spoon- 
fuls of  vinegar.  Beat  the  white  of  the  egg  to  a  stiff  froth,  and  stir 
lightly  in. 

Cabbage  Dressing. — One  egg,  one  tablespoonful  of  mustard,  and 
one  teaspoonful  of  butter,  mixed  together.  Haifa  teacup  of  vinegar. 
Put  it  on  the  stove,  and  stir  until  thickened,  but  do  not  let  it  boil. 

Salad  Dressing  {excelloit). — Take  the  yolk  of  a  hard-boiled  egg, 
a  little  salt,  red  pepper,  and  the  yolk  of  a  raw  egg.  Add  oil  slowly 
as  you  mix  it  with  the  back  of  a  fork,  stirring  it  all  the  time  one 


472  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

way.  One  tablespoonful  of  cream  or  condensed  milk,  and  the  juice 
of  a  lemon. 

Salad  Sauce. — Boil  one  egg  hard ;  when  cold,  remove  the  yolk, 
bruise  it  to  a  pulp  with  a  spoon,  then  add  a  raw  yolk  and  a  teaspoon- 
ful  of  flour,  a  small  teaspoonful  of  salt  and  a  trifle  of  pepper ;  to 
this  add  half  a  spoonful  of  vinegar ;  stir  it ;  pour  over  it  a  teaspoon- 
ful of  oil  by  degrees ;  keep  stirring,  then  a  little  more  vinegar  and 
more  of  oil,  until  eight  teaspoonfuls  of  oil  and  three  of  vinegar  are 
used. 

Chicken  Salad. — Take  the  white  meat  of  a  cold  boiled  or 
roasted  chicken  or  turkey.  Cut  three-fourths  the  same  quantity  of 
celery  into  small  bits,  mix  thoroughly  with  the  well-minced  meat 
and  set  in  a  cool  place  while  preparing  the  dressing.  Rub  the  yolks 
of  two  hard-boiled  eggs  to  a  powder,  to  which  add  one  teaspoonful 
of  salt,  one  of  pepper,  two  of  white  sugar,  and  three  teaspoonfuls  of 
salad  oil,  adding  it  drop  by  drop,  then  add  half  a  teaspoonful  of  mus- 
tard. Whip  one  egg  to  a  froth  and  beat  it  into  the  dressing,  and 
over  the  whole  pour  one-half  cup  of  vinegar,  one  teaspoonful  at  a 
time,  whipping  constantly.  Sprinkle  a  little  salt  over  the  meat  and 
celery,  and  pour  the  prepared  dressing  over  it,  tossing  with  a  large 
silver  fork  until  thoroughly  mixed.  Turn  into  the  salad-bowl  and 
garnish  tastefully  with  whites  of  eggs  and  sprigs  of  bleached  celery- 
tops.  Among  the  many  receipts  for  chicken  salad,  this  is  unsurpassed 
for  deliciousness. 

Dressing  for  Chicken  Salad. — Two  teaspoonfuls  of  mustard  and 
salt  stirred  in  a  thick  paste;  next  the  oil;  then  the  cayenne  and  the 
yolks  of  two  hard-boiled  eggs  mashed  very  fine.  Then  two  raw  eggs, 
and  lastly  the  vinegar.     This  is  for  one  chicken  only. 

Cabbage  Salad  (i). — Shave  a  hard,  white  cabbage  into  small  strips; 
take  the  yolks  of  three  well-beaten  eggs,  a  cup  and  a  half  of  good 
cider-vinegar,  two  teaspoonfuls  of  thick  cream,  one  teaspoonful  of 
mustard  mixed  in  a  little  boiling  water;  salt  and  pepper  to  suit  the 
taste.  Mix  all  but  the  eggs  together,  and  let  it  boil ;  then  stir  in  the 
eggs,  rapidly  turn  the  cabbage  into  the  mixture,  and  stir  well.     Make 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  4/3 

enough  for  two  days  at  once ;  it  keeps  perfectly,  and  is  an  excellent 
relish  for  all  kinds  of  meat. 

Cabbage  Salad  (2). — One  quart  of  very  finely-chopped  cabbage, 
two-thirds  of  a  cup  of  sour  cream,  two  well-beaten  eggs;  season  to 
taste  with  sugar,  salt,  pepper  and  mustard.  If  you  have  no  celery  to 
chop  with  your  cabbage,  put  in  a  tablespoonful  of  celery-seed.  Add 
a  little  vinegar.  This  is  very  fine,  will  keep  well  several  days  and  is 
excellent  for  picnics. 

Carrot  Salad. — Select  very  tender,  rich-colored  carrots,  and  scrape 
and  boil  them  in  fast-boiling  water  till  tender;  cut  into  very  thin  slices, 
put  them  into  a  glass  salad-bowl,  and  sprinkle  with  sifted  loaf-sugar; 
add  the  juice  of  a  large,  fresh  lemon,  and  a  wineglassful  of  olive  oil. 
By  way  of  garnish,  place  round  the  margin  of  the  dish  an  onion  cut 
in  exceedingly  thin  slices,  and  small  bunches  of  any  fresh,  green  salad- 
leaves. 

Shrlmp  Salad. — Dress  some  lettuce  with  a  mayonnaise  sauce  and 
arrange  plenty  of  canned  shrimps  or  fresh-boiled  ones  around  it. 

Cold  Slaw. — Yolks  of  two  eggs,  a  tablespoonful  of  cream,  a  small 
teaspoonful  of  mustard,  a  little  salt,  two  tablespoonfuls  of  vinegar. 
If  cream  is  not  used,  put  in  a  small  lump  of  butter,  rubbed  in  a  little 
flour.  Cut  the  cabbage  as  fine  as  possible.  Heat  the  mixture,  and 
pour  it  on  hot. 

Hot  Slaw. — Cut  a  good  cabbage,  and  with  a  sharp  knife  slice  it 
fine ;  put  it  into  a  stewpan  with  a  piece  of  butter,  and  salt  and  pepper 
to  taste;  pour  in  just  hot  water  enough  to  prevent  it  sticking  to  the 
pan,  cover  it  closely  and  let  it  stew ;  stir  it  frequently,  and  when  it  is 
quite  tender,  add  a  little  vinegar  and  serve  it  hot. 

Mayonnaise  Dressing. — The  following  recipe  for  a  mayonnaise 
dressing  for  salad  is  prepared  in  New  York :  One  pint  of  olive  oil, 
salt  and  cayenne  pepper  to  taste,  half  a  teaspoonful  of  French  mus- 
tard, the  juice  of  one  lemon,  and  vinegar;  take  an  earthen  dish,  rub 
a  clove  of  garlic  on  the  bottom  of  the  dish,  then  place  in  it  the  yolks 
of  two  raw  eggs,  salt,  pepper,  and  mustard ;  take  the  bottle  contain- 
ing the  oil  in  the  left  hand  and  a  wire  whip  in  the  right  hand ;  pour 


474  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

the  oil  very  slowly  and  keep  stirring  the  yolks.  Should  it  become 
stiff  add  a  little  vinegar.  Keep  adding  oil  and  vinegar  until  you  have 
used  the  pint  of  oil,  but  be  careful  not  to  add  too  much  vinegar. 
Finish  with  the  lemon-juice.  The  dressing  should  be  of  rather  a 
stiff  consistency,  and  will  keep  any  length  of  time  if  it  is  covered 
so  that  the  air  will  not  reach  it. 

PIES. 

The  flour  should  be  of  the  best  quality,  and  perfectly  dry,  and 
sifted  before  being  used ;  if  in  the  least  damp,  the  paste  made  from  it 
will  certainly  be  heavy.  It  should  be  kept  in  a  bin  expressly  made 
for  the  purpose. 

Butter,  unless  fresh  is  used,  should  be  washed  from  the  salt,  and 
well  squeezed  and  wrung  in  a  cloth  to  get  out.  all  the  water  and 
buttermilk,  which,  if  left  in,  assists. to  make  the  paste  heavy. 

Lard  should  be  perfectly  sweet,  which  may  be  ascertained  by 
cutting  the  bladder  through,  and,  if  the  knife  smells  sweet,  the  lard 
is  good. 

In  mixing  paste,  add  the  water  very  gradually,  work  the  whole 
together  with  a  knife-blade,  and  knead  it  until  perfectly  smooth. 

Those  who  are  inexperienced  in  pastry-making  should  work  the 
butter  in  by  breaking  it  in  small  pieces,  and  covering  the  paste 
rolled  out.  It  should  then  be  dredged  with  flour  and  the  ends  folded 
over,  and  rolled  out  very  thin  again ;  this  process  must  be  repeated 
until  all  the  butter  is  used. 

The  art  of  making  paste  requires  much  practice,  dexterity  and 
skill.  It  should  be  touched  as  lightly  as  possible,  made  with  cool 
hands,  and  in  a  cool  place  (a  marble  slab  is  better  than  a  board  for 
the  purpose),  and  the  coolest  part  of  the  house  should  be  selected 
for  the  process  during  warm  weather. 

To  insure  rich  paste  being  light,  great  expedition  must  be  used  in 
making  and  baking ;  for  if  it  stands  long  before  it  is  put.in  the  oven 
it  becomes  flat  and  heavy. 

Puff-paste  requires  a  brisk    oven,  but  not  too   hot,  or  it  would 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  475 

blacken  the  crust;  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  oven  be  too  slack, 
the  paste  will  be  soddened  and  will  not  rise,  nor  will  it  have  any- 
color. 

Tart-tins,  cake-moulds,  dishes  for  the  baked  puddings,  patty-pans, 
etc.,  should  all  be  buttered  before  the  article  intended  to  be  baked 
is  put  in  them ;  things  to  be  baked  on  sheets  should  be  placed  on 
buttered  paper.  Raised  pie-paste  should  have  a  soaking  heat,  and 
paste  glazed  must  have  a  rather  slack  oven,  that  the  icing  be  not 
scorched. 

It  is  better  to  ice  tarts,  etc.,  when  they  are  three  parts  baked. 

To  ascertain  when  the  oven  is  heated  to  the  proper  degree  for  puff- 
paste,  put  a  small  piece  of  the  paste  in  previous  to  baking  the  whole, 
and  the  heat  can  thus  be  judged  of. 

Pie-crust. — Allow  half  a  pound  of  shortening  to  a  pound  of  flour. 
If  liked  quite  short,  allow  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  shortening  to 
a  pound  of  flour.  Pie-crust  looks  the  nicest  made  entirely  of  lard, 
but  it  does  not  taste  so  good  as  it  does  to  have  some  butter  used  in 
making  it.  In  winter,  beef  shortening,  mixed  with  butter,  makes  good, 
plain  pie-crust.  Rub  half  of  the  shortening  with  two-thirds  of  the 
flour;  to  each  pound  of  flour  put  a  teaspoonful  of  salt.  When  the 
shortening  is  thoroughly  mixed  with  the  flour,  add  just  sufficient 
cold  water  to  render  it  moist  enough  to  roll  out  easily.  Divide  the 
crust  into  two  equal  portions  ;  lay  one  of  them  one  side  for  the  upper 
crust;  take  the  other,  roll  it  out  quite  thin,  flouring  your  rolling-pin 
and  board,  so  that  the  crust  will  not  stick  to  them,  and  line  your  pie- 
plates,  which  should  be  previously  buttered.  Fill  your  plates  with 
your  fruit,  then  roll  out  the  upper  crust  as  thin  as  possible.  Spread 
on  the  reserved  shortening,  sprinkle  over  the  flour,  roll  it  up,  and 
cut  it  into  as  many  pieces  as  you  have  pies  to  cover  it.  Roll  each 
one  about  half  an  inch  thick,  and  cover  the  pies;  trim  the  edges  off 
neatly  with  a  knife,  and  press  the  crust  down  round  the  edges  of  the 
plates  with  a  jagging-iron,  so  that  the  juices  of  the  fruit  may  not  run 
out  while  baking.  Pastry,  to  be  nice,  should  be  baked  in  a  quick 
oven.     In  cold  weather  it  is   necessary  to  warm   the  shortening  be- 


4/6  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

fore  using  it  for  pie-crust,  but  it  must  not  be  melted,  or  the  crust  will 
not  be  flaky. 

Very  good  Puff-paste. — To  every  pound  of  flour  allow  one  pound 
of  butter,  and  not  quite  a  half-pint  of  water.  Carefully  weigh  the 
flour  and  butter,  and  have  the  exact  proportion ;  squeeze  the  butter 
well  to  extract  the  water  from  it,  and  afterward  wring  it  in  a  clean 
cloth,  that  no  moisture  may  remain.  Sift  the  flour ;  see  that  it  is 
perfectly  dry,  and  proceed  in  the  following  manner  to  make  the  paste, 
using  a  very  clean  paste-board  and  rolling-pin  :  Supposing  the  quan- 
tity to  be  one  pound  of  flour,  work  the  whole  into  a  smooth  paste, 
with  not  quite  a  half  pint  of  water,  using  a  knife  to  mix  it  with;  the 
proportion  of  this  latter  ingredient  must  be  regulated  by  the  discretion 
of  the  cook ;  if  too  much  be  added,  the  paste,  when  baked,  will  be 
tough.  Roll  it  out  until  it  is  of  an  equal  thickness  of  about  an  inch  ; 
break  four  ounces  of  the  butter  into  small  pieces ;  place  these  on  the 
paste,  sift  over  it  a  little  flour,  fold  it  over,  roll  out  again,  and  put 
another  four  ounces  of  butter. 

Repeat  the  rolling  and  buttering  until  the  paste  has  been  rolled 
out  four  times,  or  equal  quantities  of  flour  and  butter  have  been 
used.  Do  not  omit,  every  time  the  paste  is  rolled  out,  to  dredge  a 
little  flour  over  that  and  the  rolling-pin  to  prevent  both  from  sticking. 
Handle  the  paste  as  lightly  as  possible,  and  do  not  press  heavily 
upon  it  with  the  rolling-pin.  The  next  thing  to  be  considered  is  the 
oven,  as  the  baking  of  pastry  requires  particular  attention.  Do  not 
put  it  into  the  oven  until  it  is  sufficiently  hot  to  raise  the  paste ;  for 
the  best  prepared  paste,  if  not  properly  baked,  will  be  good  for  nothing. 
Brushing  the  paste,  as  often  as  rolled  out,  and  the  pieces  of  butter 
placed  thereon,  with  the  white  of  an  egg,  assists  it  to  rise  in  leaves  or 
flakes.  As  this  is  the  great  beauty  of  puff-paste,  it  is  as  well  to  try 
this  method. 

Pastry. — An  excellent  pastry,  that  never  fails  to  be  good,  is  made 
of  one  pound  of  flour  and  half  a  pound  of  butter.  Leave  a  part  of 
the  flour  out,  and  cut  the  butter  into  the  flour  with  a  knife.  A  very 
little  salt,  a  small  quantity  of  cold  water,  and  mix  it  with  a  spoon. 
Then  use  the  remaining  flour  for  rolling  it  out. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  477 

When  pastry  or  baked  puddings  are  not  done  through,  and  yet 
the  outside  is  sufficiently  brown,  cover  them  over  with  a  piece  of 
white  paper  until  thoroughly  cooked ;  this  prevents  them  from  getting 
burnt. 

Potato  Pie. — Boil  Carolina  or  mealy  Irish  potatoes  until  they  are 
quite  soft.  When  peeled,  mash  and  strain  them.  To  a  quarter  of  a 
pound  of  potatoes,  put  a  quart  of  milk,  three  tablespoonfuls  of  melted 
butter,  four  beaten  eggs,  a  wine-glass  of  wine ;  add  sugar  and  nutmeg 
to  the  taste. 

Peach  Pie. — Take  mellow,  juicy  peaches,  peel  and  slice  and  put 
them  in  a  deep  pie-plate  lined  with  pie-crust ;  sprinkle  a  thick  layer  of 
sugar  on  each  layer  of  peaches;  put  in  about  a  tablespoonful  of  water 
and  sprinkle  a  little  flour  over  the  top ;  cover  it  with  a  thick  crust,  and 
bake  the  pie  from  fifty  to  sixty  minutes. 

Custard  Pie. — Boil  a  quart  of  milk  with  half  a  dozen  peach- 
leaves  or  the  rind  of  a  lemon.  When  they  have  flavored  the  milk 
strain  it,  and  set  it  where  it  will  boil.  Mix  a  tablespoonful  of  flour, 
smoothly,  with  a  couple  gf  tablespoonfuls  of  milk,  and  stir  it  in  the 
boiling  milk.  Let  it  boil  a  minute,  stirring  it  constantly;  take  it  from 
the  fire,  and  when  cool,  put  in  three  beaten  eggs ;  sweeten  to  the 
taste ;  turn  it  into  deep  pie-plates,  and  bake  the  pies  directly  in  a 
quick  oven. 

Cocoanut  Pie. — To  one  grated  cocoanut  add  three  large  boiled 
and  mashed  potatoes.  Boil  them  fresh  and  pound  them ;  add  a  little 
butter,  milk  and  salt.  Then  mix  the  cocoanut  and  potatoes,  add  the 
yolks  of  three  eggs  well  beaten.  Make  a  crust  with  one  pound  of 
flour  and  half  a  pound  of  butter.  Put  only  an  undercrust.  When 
the  pie  is  baked,  beat  the  whites  of  the  three  eggs  very  light ;  add  a 
little  white  sugar,  and  put  it  on  the  top  while  it  is  hot.  Then  put  it 
back  in  the  oven  for  a  few  moments. 

Lemon  Pie  (i). — Two  lemons,  two  cups  of  sugar,  one  cup  of  milk, 
two  tablespoonfuls  of  flour  and  six  eggs.  Use  the  yolks  only.  After 
the  pies  are  baked,  beat  the  whites  and  add  eight  tablespoonfuls  of 
sugar.  Spread  it  over  the  pies ;  put  them  in  the  oven  till  they  be- 
come a  light  brown. 
30 


478  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

Lemon  Pie  (2). — Seven  eggs.  Leave  out  the  whites  of  three ; 
butter,  the  size  of  a  small  egg ;  one  cup  and  a  half  of  sugar.  These 
ingredients  to  be  beaten  to  a  cream.  Juice  of  two  lemons — grated 
rind  of  one.  Milk  enough  to  fill  a  de^p  pie-plate.  The  three  whites, 
after  the  pie  is  baked,  must  be  beaten  with  a  little  powdered  sugar, 
and  put  on  the  top  of  the  pie.  Bake  with  a  pastry  crust  under  it  as 
with  any  other  kind  of  pie. 

Lemon  Custard  Pie. — For  two  pies,  mix  together  the  yolks  of 
six  eggs  (well  beaten),  four  heaped  t.iblespoonfuls  of  white  coffee 
sugar,  the  grated  rinds  of  three  large  lemons,  and  about  one  pint  of 
milk.  Bake  in  one  crust ;  put  on  a  frosting  made  of  the  whites  of 
four  eggs,  four  tablespoonfuls  of  white  sugar  and  the  juice  of  three 
lemons ;  bake  till  the  frosting  is  a  pale  brown. 

Lemon  Cream  Pie. — One  cup  of  sugar,  one  raw  potato  grated,  one 
cup  of  water,  one  lemon  grated  and  juice  added,  baked  in  pastry, 
top  and  bottom.     This  amount  will  make  one  pie. 

Tarlaton  Pie. — One  cup  of  cream  ;  one  cup  stewed  apple — rubbed 
through  a  sieve;  two  eggs;  flavor  to  the  taste. 

Cherry  Pie. — Lay  the  cherries  in  a  deep  baking-dish,  with  plenty 
of  sugar  and  a  tablespoonful  of  flour.  Place  an  inverted  cup  in  the 
middle  of  the  dish,  and  cover  the  whole  with  a  crust.  The  cup  pre- 
vents the  crust  from  soaking  into  the  juice  of  the  fruit. 

Pumpkin  Pie. — Cut  the  pumpkin  in  halves  and  remove  the  seeds; 
then  cut  it  into  small  pieces,  and  put  the  whole  on  to  boil  with  a  pint 
of  water  poured  over  them;  this  moistens  it  sufficiently  at  first,  and 
if  the  pumpkin  is  stirred  frequently  it  will  not  burn,  as  it  softens  by 
cooking  if  it  has  sufficient  moisture  of  its  own.  Let  it  stew  an  hour 
or  more  after  it  becomes  soft ;  then  strain  it  through  a  colander  into 
a  large  pan  ;  to  each  quart  of  pumpkin  add  one  quart  of  milk  and  four 
eggs;  sweeten  to  suit  taste  with  sugar,  spice,  cinnamon  and  ginger. 
After  all  is  prepared,  set  the  pan  containing  the  mixture  upon  a  kettle 
of  warm  water,  that  the  whole  may  become  warm  while  you  prepare 
the  crusts  for  the  several  pies.  Bake  the  crusts  a  little  before  pour- 
ing the  pumpkin  into  them. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  479 

Mince  Pie  (i). — Two  pounds  of  lean  beef  boiled  and  chopped  fine; 
one  pound  of  suet  chopped  fine;  two  pounds  of  raisins;  one  pound 
of  Sultana  raisins;  two  pounds  of  currants;  three-quarters  of  a  pound 
of  citron ;  two  tablespoonfuls  of  cinnamon ;  two  tablespoonfuls  of  mace; 
one  tablespoonful  of  cloves;  one  tablespoonful  of  allspice;  one  table- 
spoonful  of  salt;  one  nutmeg;  two  and  a  half  pounds  of  brown  sugar; 
five  pounds  of  apples;  one  quart  of  cider;  one  pint  of  brandy;  juice 
of  three  oranges  and  rind  of  two  oranges. 

Mince  Pie  (2). — Two  pounds  of  meat  chopped  fine  and  boiled;  two 
pounds  of  sugar;  two  pounds  of  currants;  two  pounds  of  chopped 
apples;  one  pound  of  chopped  suet;  quarter  of  a  pound  of  cloves; 
quarter  of  a  pound  of  mace ;  season  with  nutmeg,  cinnamon  and 
citron  to  taste ;  one  pint  of  wine ;  one  pint  of  brandy  ;  three  pints  of 
sweet  cider. 

Cream  Raspberry  Tarts  {^' cry  fine). — Line  a  dish  with  paste,  and 
fill  with  raspberries  made  very  sweet  with  powdered  sugar.  Cover 
with  paste,  but  do  not  pinch  it  down  at  the  edges.  When  done,  lift 
the  top  crust,  which  should  be  thicker  than  usual,  and  pour  upon  the 
fruit  the  following  mixture  :  One  small  cup  of  milk — half  cream,  if 
it  is  to  be  had — heated  to  boiling ;  whites  of  two  eggs,  beaten  light, 
and  stirred  into  the  boiling  milk  ;  one  teaspoonful  of  white  sugar,  one- 
half  teaspoonful  of  corn-starch,  wet  in  cold  milk;  boil  these  ingredi- 
ents three  minutes  ;  let  them  get  perfectly  cold  before  putting  them 
into  the  tart.  Replace  the  top  crust,  and  set  the  tart  aside  to  cool. 
Sprinkle  sugar  over  the  top  before  serving.  Peach  or  strawberry  tart 
can  be  made  in  the  same  way. 

PUDDINGS. 

The  freshness  of  all  pudding  ingredients  is  of  much  importance, 
as  one  bad  article  will  taint  the  whole  mixture. 

When  the  freshness  of  eggs  is  doubtful,  break  each  one  separately 
in  a  cup  before  mixing  them  together.  Should  there  be  a  bad  one 
amongst  them,  it  can  be  thrown  away,  whereas  if  mixed  with  the 
good   ones,  the  entire   quantity  would  be   spoiled.     The  yolks  and 


480  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

whites  beaten  separately  make  the  articles  they  are  put  into  much 
lighter. 

Raisins  and  dried  fruits  for  puddings  should  be  carefully  picked, 
and  in  many  cases  stoned.  Currants  should  be  well  washed,  pressed 
in  a  cloth,  and  placed  on  a  dish  before  the  fire  to  get  thoroughly  dry; 
they  should  be  picked  carefully  over,  and  every  piece  of  grit  or  stone 
removed  from  amongst  them.  To  plump  them,  some  cooks  pour 
boiling  water  over  them,  and  then  dry  them  before  the  fire. 

Batter  pudding  should  be  smoothly  mixed  and  free  from  lumps. 
To  insure  this,  first  mix  the  flour  with  a  very  small  proportion  of 
milk,  and  add  the  remainder  by  degrees.  Should  the  pudding  be  very 
lumpy,  it  may  be  strained  through  a  hair-sieve. 

All  boiled  puddings  should  be  put  on  in  boiling  water,  which  must 
not  be  allowed  to  stop  simmering,  and  the  pudding  must  always  be 
covered  with  the  water ;  if  requisite,  the  saucepan  should  be  kept 
filled  up. 

For  baked  or  boiled  puddings,  the  moulds,  cups  or  basins  should 
be  always  buttered  before  the  mixture  is  put  into  them,  and  they 
should  be  put  into  the  saucepan  directly  they  are  filled. 

Scrupulous  attention  should  be  paid  to  the  cleanliness  of  pudding- 
cloths,  as  from  neglect  in  this  particular  the  outsides  of  boiled  pud- 
dings frequently  taste  very  disagreeably.  As  soon  as  possible  after 
it  is  taken  off  the  pudding  it  should  be  soaked  in  water,  and  then 
well  washed,  without  soap,  unless  it  be  very  greasy.  It  should  be 
dried  out  of  doors,  then  folded  up  and  kept  in  a  dry  place.  When 
wanted  for  use,  dip  it  in  boiling  water,  and  dredge  it  slightly  with 
flour. 

The  dry  ingredients  for  puddings  are  better  for  being  mixed  some 
time  before  they  are  wanted;  the  liquid  portion  should  only  be  added 
just  before  the  pudding  is  put  into  the  saucepan. 

A  pinch  of  salt  is  an  improvement  to  the  generality  of  puddings ; 
but  this  ingredient  should  be  added  very  sparingly,  as  the  flavor 
should  not  be  detected. 

Baked  Puddings. — When,  baked  puddings  are  sufficiently  soh"d, 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  48 1 

turn  them  out  of  the  dish  they  were  baked  in,  bottom  uppermost,  and 
strew  over  them  finely  sifted  sugar. 

Baked  R'ice  Pudding. — One  teacupful  of  rice,  two  tablespoonfuls 
of  moist  sugar,  one  quart  of  milk,  half  an  ounce  of  butter,  or  two 
small  tablespoonfuls  of  chopped  suet,  half  a  teaspoonful  of  grated 
nutmeg.  Wash'  the  rice,  put  it  into  a  pie-dish  with  the  sugar,  pour 
in  the  milk,  and  stir  these  ingredients  well  together ;  then  add  the 
butter,  cut  up  into  very  small  pieces,  or,  instead  of  this,  the  above 
proportion  of  finely  minced  suet ;  grate  a  little  nutmeg  over  the  top, 
and  bake  the  pudding,  in  a  moderate  oven,  from  an  hour  and  a  half 
to  two  hours.  As  the  rice  is  not  previously  cooked,  care  must  be 
taken  that  the  pudding  be  very  slowly  baked,  to  give  plenty  of  time 
for  the  rice  to  swell,  and  for  it  to  be  very  thoroughly  done. 

Boiled  Rice  Pudding. — Quarter  of  a  pound  of  rice,  one  pint  and 
a-half  of  new  milk,  two  ounces  of  butter,  four  eggs,  half  a  saltspoonful 
of  salt,  four  large  tablespoonfuls  of  moist  sugar;  flavoring  to  taste. 
Stew  the  rice  very  gently  in  the  above  proportion  of  new  milk,  and 
when  it  is  tender  pour  it  into  a  basin  ;  stir  in  the  butter,  and  let  it 
stand  to  cool ;  then  beat  the  eggs,  add  these  to  the  rice  with  the 
sugar,  salt,  and  any  flavoring  that  may  be  approved — such  as  nutmeg, 
powdered  cinnamon,  grated  lemon-peel,  essence  of  bitter  almonds,  or 
vanilla.  When  all  is  well  stirred,  put  the  pudding  into  a  buttered 
basin,  tie  it  down  with  a  cloth,  pkinge  it  into  boiling  water,  and  boil 
for  an  hour  and  a-quarter. 

Lemon  Sauce. — Slice  a  lemon;  take  the  seeds  out,  so  as  not  to  get 
the  bitter;  put  it  with  a  pint  of  sugar  and  a  small  quantity  of  water; 
let  it  boil,  and  add  a  piece  of  butter. 

Apple  Sauce. — Pare  your  apples  quickly,  and  pour  on  boiling 
water.  Cook  rapidly  to  avoid  discoloration,  and  keep  the  fruit  cov- 
ered while  cooking. 

Sauce  for  Baked  Pudding. — Take  one  pint  of  water,  a  large 
teacup  of  sugar,  a  piece  of  butter  the  size  of  a  large  egg,  a  little  nut- 
meg and  essence  of  lemon,  and  bring  it  to  a  boil.  Now  take  a  little 
flour  or  corn-starch  (which   is  best),  well  beaten  into  a  paste  and 


482  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

thinned,  and  stir  gradually  till  of  the  consistency  of  cream,  or  as 
thick  as  you  like;  then  add  a  large  tablespoonful  of  vinegar  or 
brandy. 

Pudding  Sauce  (i). — Stir  half  a  cup  of  butter  with  half  a  cup  of 
sugar;  a  little  flour.  Pour  boiling  water  over  the  whole.  Add  wine 
just  before  going  to  the  table. 

Pudding  Sauce  (2). — One  cup  of  milk,  one  of  sugar,  one  of  butter, 
one  tablespoonful  of  flour;  rub  the  sugar,  butter  and  flour  together; 
bring  the  milk  to  a  boil,  and  stir  in  the  other,  then  boil  a  second 
time.     Season  to  suit  taste. 

Corn-starch  Pudding. — One  quart  of  milk,  one  teacup  of  starch, 
one  teaspoon  of  salt,  three  eggs  well  beaten.  Dissolve  the  starch  in 
a  little  of  the  milk,  putting  the  remainder  on  to  boil.  When  boiling, 
take  it  off  and  stir  in  the  starch  first,  then  add  the  eggs.  Turn  it 
into  forms  and  serve  cold,  or  bake  it,  which  is  an  improvement. 

For  sauce,  beat  cream  and  loaf-sugar  together,  and  flavor  it  to  your 
taste. 

Home  PuDDiNo.^One  pint  of  milk,  yolks  of  two  egg^,  three 
crackers  rolled  fine  and  bake.  Use  three-fourths  of  a  cup  of  sugar, 
and  the  whites  for  frosting ;  spread  over  the  pudding,  and  return  to 
the  oven  for  a  few  minutes. 

To  Make  an  Indian  Pudding. — One  quart  sweet  skimmed  milk; 
let  it  come  to  a  boil,  then  stir  in  one  cup  Indian  meal  and  one  hand- 
ful of  flour ;  pour  it  into  a  baking-pan  and  add  two-thirds  of  a  cup  of 
molasses,  teaspoonful  of  salt  and  one  cup  of  cold  milk.  Bake  four 
hours.     Slice  in  two  or  three  apples  if  convenient  to  do  so.         • 

Bread  Pudding. — One  pint  of  fine  bread-crumbs,  one  quart  of 
milk,  one  cup  of  sugar.  The  yolks  of  four  eggs  beaten.  A  piece  of 
butter  the  size  of  an  egg.  Grated  rind  of  a  lemon.  Bake  until  done, 
but  not  watery.  Whip  the  whites  of  the  eggs  stiff,  and  beat  in  a  cup 
of  sugar  in  which  has  been  stirred  the  juice  of  a  lemon.  Spread 
aver  the  pudding  a  layer  of  jelly  ;  pour  the  whites  of  the  eggs  over 
this  and  replace  in  the  oven  and  bake  lightly. 

English  Plum  Pudding. — One  pound  of  flour,  one  pound  of  raisins, 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  483 

one  pound  of  currants,  one  pound  of  suet,  one  pound  of  powdered 
crackers,  eight  eggs,  a  small  quantity  of  salt ;  spice  to  the  taste  with 
cloves,  nutmeg,  cinnamon  and  citron,  four  ounces  of  candied  lemon 
and  orange  peel,  one  wine-glass  of  brandy,  one  wine-glass  of  rum, 
one  pound  of  sugar,  one  pint  of  milk  and  water.  Boil  it  six  or 
eight  hours,  and  tie  the  bag  loosely  so  as  to  allow  the  rum  to  swell. 

Plum  Pudding. — Take  a  sixpenny  loaf  of  stale  baker's  bread,  cut 
in  small  pieces  (except  the  under  crust) ;  lay  it  in  a  pan,  and  pour  a 
quart  and  a  pint  of  boiling  milk  over  it;  let  it  stand  an  hour  or  two, 
then  mash  it  quite  fine,  and,  when  it  is  cold,  stir  in  some  flour — two 
or  three  handfuls — add  seven  eggs  well  beaten,  three-quarters  of  a 
pound  of  beef  suet  chopped  very  fine,  two  pounds  of  stoned  raisins, 
one  pound  of  currants,  a  small  quantity  of  cinnamon  and  cloves, 
quarter  of  a  pound  of  citron,  two  nutmegs.  Boil  it  three  hours,  and 
have  the  water  boiling  when  it  is  put  in;  also  have  a  tea-kettle  of 
hot  water  to  fill  up  the  pot. 

Carrot  Plum  Pudding. — One-quarter  pound  of  flour,  one-quarter 
pound  of  suet,  one-quarter  pound  of  grated  carrots  (raw);  one-quarter 
pound  of  potatoes,  mashed  free  from  lumps ;  one-quarter  pound  of 
currants,  one-quarter  pound  of  raisins,  one  ounce  of  candied  peel,  a 
little  nutmeg  and  other  spices  mixed  together.  No  liquid  is  required 
to  mix  this  pudding ;  the  carrots  will  give  sufficient  moisture ;  and  if 
they  are  fresh  and  fine,  it  is  impossible  to  detect  their  presence  in  the 
pudding.      Boil  six  hours  and  serve  with  good  brandy  sauce. 

PuFFETS. — Beat  two  heaping  tablespoonfuls  of  cream  tartar  in  three 
pints  of  well-sifted  flour;  beat  three  eggs  well;  one  cup  of  sugar; 
one  cup  of  soft  butter  ;  add  one  pint  of  milk,  into  which  dissolve  one 
teaspoonful  of  soda,  after  which  add  the  flour.  Mix  lightly,  and  bake 
thirty  minutes  in  a  quick  oven  ;  pour  it  all  in  a  dripping-pan,  and 
*  when  done  cut  it  in  small  square  pieces. 

Steam  Pudding  {Good). — Half  a  cup  of  sugar;  three  tablespoon- 
fuls of  butter  ;  two  eggs  well  beaten ;  two  cups  of  sweet  milk  ;  flour 
enough  to  make  a  stiff  batter ;  one  teaspoonful  of  soda;  two  of  cream 
tartar;  one  cup  of  currants,  and  one  of  raisins.  Boil  it  two  hours; 
eat  it  with  cold  sauce. 


484  THE  hearthstone;   ok,  life  at  home. 

Hasty  Pudding. — Boil  water,  a  quart,  three  pints,  or  two  quarts, 
according  to  the  size  of  family ;  sift  your  meal,  stir  five  or  six  spoon- 
fuls of  it  thoroughly  into  a  bowl  of  water;  when  the  water  in  the 
kettle  boils,  pour  into  it  the  contents  of  the  bowl ;  stir  it  well  and  let 
it  boil  up  thick ;  put  in  salt  to  suit  your  taste,  then  stand  over  the 
kettle  and  sprinkle  in  meal,  handful  after  handful,  stirring  it  very 
thoroughly  all  the  time,  and  letting  it  boil  between  whiles.  When  it 
is  so  thick  that  you  stir  it  with  difficulty,  it  is  about  right.  It  takes 
about  half  an  hour's  cooking.  Eat  with  milk  or  molasses.  Either 
Indian  meal  or  r)'e  meal  may  be  used. 

Green  Corn  Pudding. — Allow  one  long  ear  of  sweet  corn  for  each 
person;  take  half  a  pint  of  milk,  one  egg,  a  dessertspoonful  of  white 
sugar,  one  of  sweet  butter,  and  a  teaspoonful  of  salt  to  every  two  ears; 
beat  the  egg  and  sugar  well  together,  and  add  the  milk  and  salt ;  cut 
the  corn  off  the  cobs  with  a  sharp  knife,  and  chop  the  divided  grains 
with  a  chopping-knife,  but  not  too  fine — or,  better  still,  split  each  row 
of  grains  down  the  middle  before  cutting  them  off  the  cobs  ;  stir  the 
chopped  corn  into  the  milk,  and  bake  in  a  brisk  oven  in  custard-cups 
or  a  tin  pan  until  the  top  is  nicely  browned,  but  not  hardened.  Serve 
hot,  without  .sauce.     Some  prefer  it  cold. 

Tapioca  Pudding  (i). — Four  tablespoonfuls  of  tapioca,  one  quart 
of  milk,  three  eggs,  one  ounce  of  butter,  one  cup  of  sugar.  Put  the 
tapioca  in  the  milk  and  boil  in  a  kettle  of  water  until  it  dissolves. 
Add  the  butter,  sugar  and  c^^^  while  the  milk  is  hot,  and  bake  it 
half  an  hour.     Sauce  of  butter,  sugar  and  nutmeg. 

Tapioca  Pudding  (2). — To  two  quarts  of  warm  milk  put  eight 
tablespoonfuls  of  tapioca,  four  beaten  eggs,  a  tablcspoonful  of  butter, 
and  cinnamon  or  mace  to  the  taste;  mix  four  tablespoonfuls  of  white 
powdered  sugar  and  a  wine-glass  of  wine ;  stir  it  into  the  rest  of  the 
ingredients.  Turn  the  whole  into  a  pudding-dish  that  has  a  lining 
of  pastry,  and  bake  immediately. 

Lemon  Pudding  (i). — Three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  sugar,  three- 
quarters  of  a  pound  of  butter,  yolks  of  twelve  eggs ;  the  peel  of  three 
lemons  and  juice  of  two;  paste  in  the  bottom  of  the  dish. 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


485 


Lemon  Pudding  (2). — One-quarter  of  a  pound  of  butter,  peel  and 
juice  of  two  lemons,  two  rolled  crackers,  six  tablespoonfuls  of  wine, 
six  eggs,  one  pint  of  cream  or  milk  ;  sugar  to  taste. 

Baked  Flour  Pudding. — One  quart  of  milk,  eight  eggs  well  beaten, 
eight  tablespoonfuls  of  sifted  flour,  a  little  salt;  bake  in  a  hot  oven. 
It  should  be  eaten  with  cold  sauce. 

Batter  Pudding. — One  pint  of  sour  milk,  one  teaspoonful  of  salt, 
flour  enough  to  make  it  a  stiff  cake  ;  one  teaspoonful  of  soda,  or  more, 
as  it  may  require.  Can  be  made  with  or  without  fruit.  If  made  with 
fruit,  one-half  of  the  batter  should  be  put  in  the  pan,  then  the  fruit, 
and  the  remaining  portion  of  the  batter.     Steam  one  hour. 

CocoANUT  Pudding  (i). — Three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  butter, 
three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  sugar ;  beat  to  a  cream ;  twelve  whites 
of  eggs,  added  by  degrees ;  three-quarters  of  a  cocoanut,  grated ;  a 
glass  of  brandy  and  a  little  rose-water.     A  thin  paste  at  the  bottom. 

Cocoanut  Pudding  (2). — Two  cocoanuts,  one  quart  of  milk  or 
cream,  the  yolks  of  ten  eggs,  five  whites;  a  lump  of  butter  the  size 
of  an  egg;  sugar  to  your  taste. 

Cottage  Pudding. — One  pint  and  a  half  of  flour,  two  small  tea- 
spoonfuls  of  cream-tartar,  rubbed  in  the  flour;  five  small  tablespoon- 
fuls of  melted  butter,  a  little  salt,  one  egg,  well  beaten  ;  one  teacup 
of  sugar,  one  tumbler  of  sweet  milk;  take  out  a  little  milk,,  in  which 
dissolve  one  small  teaspoonful  of  soda,  and  add  the  last  thing.  Bake 
it  three-quarters  of  an  hour  in  a  moderate  oven. 

Apple  Dumplings. — Pare  and  scoop  out  the  core  of  six  large 
baking  apples ;  put  part  of  a  clove  and  a  little  grated  lemon-peel  in- 
side of  each,  and  enclose  them  in  pieces  of  puff-paste;  boil  them  in 
nets  for  the  purpose,  or  bits  of  linen,  for  an  hour.  Before  serving, 
cut  off  a  small  bit  from  the  top  of  each,  and  put  in  a  teaspoonful  of 
sugar  and  a  bit  of  fresh  butter.  Replace  the  bit  of  paste,  and  strew 
over  them  pounded  loaf  sugar. 

Suet  Pudding. — One  cup  of  chopped  suet,  one  cup  of  chopped 
raisins,  one  cup  of  sweet  milk,  one  cup  of  molasses,  three  cups  of 
flour,  or  enough  to  make  a  stiff  batter ;  one  teaspoonful  of  salt  and 


486  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

one  teaspoonful  of  soda.  Rub  the  butter  and  sugar  together;  beat 
the  white  of  an  egg  to  a  froth,  and  stir  with  it.  Grate  nutmeg  over 
it,  and  stand  it  in  the  refrigerator  until  ready  to  use,  and  then  turn 
hot  wine  and  water  to  it. 

Apple  Pudding. — Two  pounds  of  stewed .  apples  rubbed  through 
a  sieve,  one  pound  of  butter,  one  pound  of  sugar,  ten  eggs,  ten  table- 
spoonfuls  of  cream  or  milk,  one  wine-glass  of  brandy,  a  small  quan- 
tity of  orange  peel — ground  or  cut  fine ;  baked  in  paste. 

CREAMS,  JELLIES,  CUSTARDS,  ETC 

Jelly  Moulded  with  Fresh  Fruit,  or  Macedoine  de  Fruits. — 
Rather  more  than  a  pint  and  a  half  of  jelly,  a  few  nice  strawberries, 
or  red  or  white  currants,  or  raspberries,  or  any  fresh  fruit  that  may 
be  in  season.  Have  ready  the  above  proportion  of  jelly,  which  must 
be  very  clear  and  rather  sweet,  the  raw  fruit  requiring  an  additional 
quantity  of  sugar.  Select  ripe,  nice-looking  fruit;  pick  off  the  stalks, 
unless  currants  are  used,  when  they  are  laid  in  the  jelly  as  they  come 
from  the  tree.  Begin  by  putting  a  little  jelly  at  the  bottom  of  the 
mould,  which  must  harden ;  then  arrange  the  fruit  round  the  sides 
of  the  mould,  recollecting  that  it  will  be  reversed  when  turned  out; 
then  pour  in  some  more  jelly  to  make  the  fruit  adhere,  and  when  that 
layer  is  set,  put  another  row  of  fruit  and  jelly  until  the  mould  is  full. 
If  convenient,  put  it  in  ice  until  required  for  table  ;  then  wring  a  cloth 
in  boiling  water,  wrap  it  round  the  mould  for  a  minute,  and  turn  the 
jelly  carefully  out.  Peaches,  apricots,  plums,  apples,  etc.,  are  better 
for  being  boiled  in  a  little  clear  syrup  before  they  are  laid  in  the  jelly; 
strawberries,  raspberries,  grapes,  cherries  and  currants  are  put  in  raw. 
In  winter,  when  fresh  fruits  are  not  obtainable,  a  very  pretty  jelly 
may  be  made  with  preserved  fruits  or  brandy  cherries  ;  these,  in  a 
bright  and  clear  jelly,  have  a  very  pretty  effect ;  of  course,  unless  the 
jelly  be  very  clear,  the  beauty  of  the  dish  will  be  spoiled.  It  may  be 
garnished  with  the  same  fruit  as  is  laid  in  the  jelly;  for  instance,  an 
open  jelly  with  strav/berries  might  have,  piled  in  the  centre,  a  few  of 
the  same  fruit  prettily  arranged,  or  a  little  whipped  cream  might  be 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  487 

substituted  for  the  fruit.  One  layer  of  jelly  should  remain  two  hours 
in  a  very  cool  place  before  anothe*  layer  is  added. 

Tapioca  Cream. — Put  two  tablespoonfuls  of  tapioca  to  soak  in  cold 
water ;  set  it  on  the  stove,  and,  when  thoroughly  dissolved,  pour  in  a 
quart  of  milk.  When  this  begins  to  boil,  stir  in  the  yolks  of  two 
eggs  well  beaten,  with  a  cup  of  sugar.  When  this  boils  stir  in  the 
whites,  beaten  to  a  stiff  froth,  and  take  it  immediately  from  the  fire. 
Flavor  to  taste. 

Lemon  Cream. — One  pint  of  cream,  the  yolks  of  two  eggs,  one 
quarter  of  a  pound  of  white  sugar,  one  large  lemon,  one  ounce  of 
isinglass  ;  put  the  cream  into  a  lined  saucepan,  with  the  sugar,  lemon- 
peel  and  isinglass,  and  simmer  these  over  a  gentle  fire  for  about  ten 
minutes,  stirring  them  all  the  time;  strain  the  cream  into  a  jug,  add 
the  yolks  of  eggs,  which  should  be  well  beaten,  and  put  the  jug  into 
a  saucepan  of  boiling  water  ;  stir  the  mi.xture  one  way  until  it  thickens, 
but  do  not  allow  it  to  boil ;  take  it  off  the  fire,  and  keep  stirring  it 
until  nearly  cold;  strain  the  lemon-juice  into  a  basin,  gradually  pour 
on  it  the  cream,  and  stir  it  well  until  the  juice  is  well  mixed  with  it; 
have  ready  a  well-oiled  mould;  pour  the  cream  into  it,  and  let  it  re- 
main until  perfectly  set.  When  required  for  table,  loosen  the  edges 
with  a  small  blunt  knife ;  put  a  dish  on  the  top  of  the  mould,  turn  it 
over  quickly,  and  the  cream  should  easily  slip  away;  it  will  require 
ten  minutes  to  boil  the  cream  ;  about  ten  minutes  to  stir  it  over  the 
fire  in  a  jug. 

Economical  Lemon  Cream. — One  quart  of  milk,  eight  bitter 
almonds,  two  ounces  of  gelatine,  two  large  lemons,  three-quarters  of 
a  pound  of  lump  sugar,  the  yolks  of  six  eggs;  put  the  milk  into  a 
lined  saucepan,  with  the  almonds,  which  should  be  well  pounded  in 
a  mortar,  the  gelatine,  lemon-rind  and  lump-sugar,  and  boil  these 
ingredients  for  about  five  minutes  ;  beat  up  the  yolks  of  the  eggs, 
strain  the  milk  into  a  jug,  add  the  eggs,  and  pour  the  mixture  back- 
ward and  forward  a  few  times,  until  nearly  cold ;  then  stir  briskly  to 
it  the  lemon-juice,  which  should  be  strained,  and  keep  stirring  until 
the  cream  is  almost  cold  ;  put  it  into  an  oiled  mould  and  let  it  remain 


488  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

until  perlectly  set.  The  lemon-juice  must  not  be  added  to  the 
cream  when  it  is  warm,  and  should  be  kept  well  stirred  after  it  is 
put  in. 

Whipped  Cream. — Whips  to  be  light  must  be  quickly  and  lightly 
whisked,  and  as  the  froth  rises,  carefully  skimmed  off  with  a  spoon 
and  laid  on  a  reversed  sieve.  Half  a  pint  of  cream,  half  a  glass  of 
sherry,  the  juice  of  half  a  lemon  and  a  little  sifted  sugar — these, 
added  by  little  at  a  time,  make  sufficient  whip  to  cover  an  ordinary 
trifle  dish. 

Orange  Cream  (i). — One  ounce  of  isinglass,  six  large  oranges, 
one  lemon,  sugar  to  taste,  water,  half  a  pint  of  good  cream.  Squeeze 
the  juice  from  the  oranges  and  lemon ;  strain  it  and  put  it  into  a  sauce- 
pan with  the  isinglass  and  sufficient  water  to  make  in  all  one  pint  and 
a  half  Rub  the  sugar  on  the  orange  and  lemon-rind,  add  to  it  the 
other  ingredients,  and  boil  all  together  for  about  ten  minutes.  Strain 
through  a  muslin  bag,  and,  when  cold,  beat  up  with  it  half  a  pint  of 
thick  cream.  Wet  a  mould  or  soak  it  in  cold  water ;  pour  in  the 
cream,  and  put  it  in  a  cool  place  to  set.  If  the  weather  is  very  cold, 
one  ounce  of  isinglass  will  be  found  sufficient  for  the  above  proportion 
of  ingredients.     Time :  Ten  minutes  to  boil  the  juice  and  water. 

Orange  Cream  (2). — One  Seville  orange,  one  tablespoonful  of 
brandy,  quarter  of  a  pound  of  loaf-sugar,  the  yolks  of  four  eggs,  one 
pint  of  cream.  Boil  the  rind  of  the  Seville  orange  until  tender,  and 
beat  it  in  a  mortar  to  a  pulp ;  add  to  it  the  brandy,  the  strained  juice 
of  the  orange  and  the  sugar,  and  beat  all  together  for  about  ten  min- 
utes, adding  the  well-beaten  yolks  of  eggs.  Bring  the  cream  to  the 
boiling-point,  and  pour  it  very  gradually  to  the  othar  ingredients,  and 
beat  the  mixture  till  nearly  cold ;  put  it  into  custard-cups,  place  the 
cups  in  a  deep  dish  of  boiling  water,  where  let  them  remain  till  quite 
cold.  Take  the  cups  out  of  the  water,  wipe  them,  and  garnish  the 
tops  of  the  cream  with  candied  orange-peel  or  preserved  chips. 

Ice-cream. — The  best  ice-cream  is  made  simply  of  cream,  sweet- 
ened, flavored  with  lemon-juice,  or  other  extracts,  if  preferred,  and 
frozen.     Where  cream  cannot  be  procured,  make  a  custard.     One 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  489 

quart  of  milk,  three  eggs,  beaten  light,  sweetened,  heat  scalding  hot; 
care  must  be  taken  that  it  does  not  boil.  Take  it  from  the  fire ; 
when  cool,  season  it  with  vanilla  or  lemon,  and  freeze. 

Pineapple  Ice-cream. — Half  a  pound  of  preserved  pineapple,  one 
pint  of  cream,  the  juice  of  a  small  lemon,  one  gill  of  new  milk,  quarter 
of  a  pound  of  sugar;  cut  the  pineapple  into  small  pieces;  bruise  it 
in  a  mortar;  add  the  sugar,  lemon-juice,  cream  and  milk;  mix  well 
together ;  press  through  a  hair-sieve,  and  freeze. 

Raspberry  Ice-cream. — Half  a  pound  of  raspberry  jam,  the  juice 
of  one  lemon,  one  pint  of  cream,  one  gill  of  milk,  a  {ew  drops  of 
cochineal ;  strain  the  lemon-juice  over  the  jam;  stir  in  the  cochineal; 
add  the  milk  and  cream ;  beat  up  in  a  basin  and  freeze. 

Strawberry  Ice-cream. — Half  a  pound  of  fresh  strawberries,  half 
a  pound  of  sugar,  one  pint  of  cream,  half  a  pound  of  good  strawberry- 
jam,  the  juice  of  one  lemon,  half  a  pint  of  milk;  beat  up  the  straw- 
berries, lemon-juice  and  sugar  into  a  pulp;  add  the  preserved  cream 
and  milk,  and  freeze. 

Coffee  Ice-cream. — Six  ounces  of  Turkey  coffee-berries,  well 
roasted,  one  pint  of  cream,  half  a  pint  of  milk,  one  ounce  of  arrow- 
root, half  a  pound  of  sugar;  place  the  berries  on  a  tin  in  the  oven  for 
five  minutes ;  boil  the  cream  and  milk  together,  and  put  them  into  a 
can ;  take  the  berries  from  the  oven  and  throw  them  in  the  scalding 
cream  ;  cover  till  cold  ;  strain  ;  add  the  arrowroot  and  sugar;  stir  over 
the  fire  like  custard: 

Bavarian  Cream. — Boil  a  pint  of  rich  milk  with  a  teacupful  of 
sugar,  and  add  a  teaspoonful  of  vanilla.  Soak  half  a  bo.x  of  Cox's 
gelatine  for  an  hour  in  half  a  cup  of  warm  water  and  add  the  milk. 
Add  the  yolks  of  four  eggs  beaten  smooth,  and  take  from  the  fire 
instantly.  When  cold,  and  just  beginning  to  thicken,  stir  in  one  pint 
of  cream,  whipped  to  a  stiff  froth.  Put  in  moulds  and  set  in  a  cool 
place.  For  chocolate,  add  two  tablespoonfuls  of  grated  chocolate 
dissolved  in  half  a  cup  of  boiling  water;  for  coffee,  one  teacup  of  clear, 
strong  coffee. 

Chocolate  Eclairs. — Take  four  ounces  of  flour,  half  a  teaspoon- 


490  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

ful  of  baking  powder,  and  a  very  small  pinch  of  salt,  and  sift  them 
together;  beat  the  yolks  of  four  eggs  light;  beat  into  them  six  ounces 
of  pulverized  sugar;  beat  the  whites  of  your  four  eggs  light,  and  add 
the  flour  and  whites  of  egg,  a  tablespoonful  at  a  time,  to  the  sugar 
and  yolks ;  put  a  sheet  of  well-buttered  paper  in  a  baking-pan,  drop 
your  cake  into  small  oblong  forms  on  it,  and  bake  to  a  light-brown 
in  a  quick  oven ;  grate  two  ounces  of  chocolate,  add  to  it  four  ounces 
of  pulverized  sugar,  moisten  it  with  cold  water,  mix  smooth  in  a  tin 
and  set  in  a  pot  of  hot  water  on  the  fire ;  let  it  boil  until  it  candies ; 
put  it  while  hot  on  under  part  of  the  cakes,  and  put  them  two  and 
two  together ;  then  put  the  chocolate  on  top  of  each  two,  and  put 
them  for  a  few  moments  in  the  oven  to  dry. 

Cream  for  Filling. — One  cup  of  sugar,  juice  and  grated  rind  of 
two  lemons,  two  eggs ;  boil  in  a  farina-kettle  until  it  thickens. 

Jelly  of  Irish  Moss. — Irish  moss,  half  an  ounce ;  fresh  milk,  a 
pint  and  a  half;  boil  down  to  a  pint;  remove  any  sediment  by  strain- 
ing, and  add  the  proper  quantity  of  sugar  and  lemon-juice  or  peach 
water  to  give  it  an  agreeable  flavor. 

To  Clarify  Sugar  for  Water-ices. — Use  six  pounds  of  sugar, 
six  pints  of  water  and  the  white  of  an  egg ;  melt  the  sugar  in  the 
water,  and  place  over  a  gentle  fire ;  let  it  boil  well ;  beat  the  white 
of  an  egg,  and  add  it  to  the  water;  boil  ten  minutes,  strain  and 
bottle  for  use. 

To  Make  Fruit  Water-ices. — To  every  pint  of  fruit-juice  allow 
one  pint  of  syrup;  select  nice  ripe  fruit;  pick  off  the  stalks,  and  put 
it  into  a  large  earthen  pan,  with  a  little  pounded  sugar  strewed  over; 
stir  it  about  with  a  wooden  spoon  until  it  is  well  broken,  then  rub  it 
through  a  hair-sieve ;  make  the  syrup,  let  it  cool,  add  the  fruit-juice, 
mix  well  together,  and  put  the  mixture  into  the  freezing-pot;  when 
the  mixture  is  equally  frozen,  put  it  into  small  glasses.  Raspberry, 
strawberry,  cuarant  and  other  fresh  fruit  water-ices  are  made  in  the 
same  manner. 

Lemon  Ice. — Six  lemons,  juice  of  all,  and  grated  peel  of  three; 
one  large  sweet  orange,  juice  and  rind,  one  pint  of  water,  one  pint  of 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  .  49 1 

sugar;  squeeze  out  every  drop  of  juice  and  steep  it  in  the  rind  of 
orange  and  lemons  one  hour;  strain,  squeezing  the  bag  dry;  mix  in 
the  sugar  and  then  the  water;  stir  until  dissolved,  and  freeze  by 
turning  in  a  freezer,  opening  three  times  to  beat  all  up  together. 

Orange  Ice. — Six  oranges,  juice  of  all,  and  grated  peel  of  three; 
two  lemons,  the  juice  only  ;  one  pint  of  sugar  dissolved  in  one  pint  of 
water.     Prepare  and  freeze  as  you  would  lemon  ice. 

Pineapple  Ice. — One  juicy,  ripe  pineapple,  peeled  and  cut  small; 
juice  and  grated  peel  of  one  lemon,  one  pint  of  sugar,  one  pint  of 
water,  or  less ;  strew  the  sugar  over  the  pineapple,  and  let  it  stand 
an  hour;  mash  all  up  together,  and  strain  out  the  syrup  through  a 
hair-sieve  ;  add  the  water  and  freeze. 

Lemon  Water-ice. — To  every  pint  of  syrup  allow  one-third  pint 
of  lemon-juice;  the  rind  of  four  lemons;  rub  the  sugar  on  the  rinds 
of  the  lemons,  and  with  it  make  a  syrup;  strain  the  lemon-juice,  add 
to  it  the  other  ingredients,  stir  well,  and  put  the  mixture  into  a  freez- 
ing-pot. Freeze  it,  and  when  the  mixture  is  thoroughly  and  equally 
frozen,  put  it  into  ice-glasses. 

Orange  Jelly  Moulded  with  Slices  of  Orange. — Use  one  pint 
and  a  half  of  orange  jelly,  four  oranges,  one-half  pint  of  clarified 
syrup  ;  boil  one-half  pound  of  loaf-sugar  with  one-half  pint  of  water 
until  there  is  no  scum  left  (which  must  be  carefully  removed  as  fast 
as  it  rises),  and  carefully  peel  the  oranges  ;  divide  them  into  thin  slices 
without  breaking  the  thin  skin,  and  put  these  pieces  of  orange  into 
the  syrup,  where  let  them  remain  for  about  five  minutes;  then  take 
them  out,  and  use  the  syrup  for  the  jelly ;  when  the  oranges  are  well 
drained,  and  the  jelly  is  nearly  cold,  pour  a  little  of  the  latter  into 
the  bottom  of  the  mould  ;  then  lay  in  a  few  pieces  of  orange  ;  over 
these  pour  a  little  jelly,  and  when  this  is  set,  place  another  layer  of 
oranges,  proceeding  in  this  manner  until  the  mould  is  full ;  put  it  in 
ice,  or  in  a  cool  place,  and  before  turning  it  out,  wrap  a  cloth  round 
the  mould  for  a  minute  or  two,  which  has  been  wrung  in  boiling 
water.     SufiFicient  with  the  slices  of  orange  to  fill  a  quart  mould. 

A  Pretty  Dish  of  Oranges. — Six  large  oranges,  one-half  pound 


4^2  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

of  loaf-sugar,  one-quarter  pint  of  water,  one-half  pint  of  cream,  two 
tablespoonfuls  of  any  kind  of  liquor ;  sugar  to  taste.  Put  the  sugar 
and  water  into  a  saucepan,  and  boil  them  until  the  sug^ar  becomes 
brittle,  which  may  be  ascertained  by  taking  up  a  small  quantity  in  a 
spoon  and  dipping  it  into  cold  water;  if  the  sugar  is  sufficiently  boiled 
it  will  easily  snap;  peel  the  oranges;  remove  as  much  of  the  white 
pith  as  possible,  and  divide  them  into  nice-sized  slices  without  break- 
ing the  thin  white  skin  which  surrounds  the  juicy  pulp;  place  the 
pieces  of  orange  on  small  skewers,  dip  them  into  hot  sugar,  and 
arrange  them  in  layers  round  a  plain  mould,  which  should  be  well 
oiled  with  the  purest  salad  oil.  The  sides  of  the  mould  only  should 
be  lined  with  the  oranges,  and  the  centre  left  open  for  the  cream. 
Let  the  sugar  become  firm  by  cooling ;  turn  the  oranges  carefully  out 
on  a  dish,  and  fill  the  centre  with  whipped  cream,  flavored  with  any 
kind  of  liquor,  and  sweetened  with  pounded  sugar.  This  is  an  ex- 
ceedingly ornamental  and  nice  dish  for  the  supper-table. 

Apple  Trifle. — Scald  as  many  apples  as,  when  pulped,  will  cover 
the  dish  you  design  to  use  to  the  depth  of  two  or  three  inches.  Be- 
fore you  place  them  in  the  dish,  add  to  them  the  rind  of  half  a  lemon, 
grated  fine,  and  sugar  to  taste ;  mix  half  a  pint  of  milk,  half  a  pint 
of  cream,  and  the  yolk  of  an  egg ;  scald  it  over  the  fire,  keeping  it 
stirring,  and  do  not  let  it  boil ;  add  a  little  sugar,  and  let  it  stand 
till  cold,  then  lay  it  over  the  apples,  and  finish  with  the  cream  whip. 

Ambrosia. — Peel  some  sweet  oranges,  slice  them,  and  lay  them  in 
a  glass  dish  with  alternate  layers  of  grated  cocoanut  and  sugar  to 
taste,  putting  a  layer  of  cocoanut  on  the  top,  and  pouring  over  the 
whole  a  full  wineglass  of  good  sherry.  Place  on  the  ice  till  needed, 
and  serve  very  cold. 

Meringues. — Use  one-half  a  pound  of  pounded  sugar  and  the 
whites  of  four  eggs.  Whisk  the  whites  of  the  eggs  to  a  stiff  froth, 
and  with  a  wooden  spoon  stir  in  quickly  the  pounded  sugar;  and 
have  some  boards  put  in  the  oven  thick  enough  to  prevent  the  bottom 
of  the  meringues  from  acquiring  too  much  color.  Cut  some  strips 
of  paper  about  two  inches  wide  ;  place  this  paper  on  the  board  and 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


493 


drop  a  tablespoonful  at  a  time  of  the  mixture  on  the  paper,  taking 
care  to  let  all  the  meringues  be  the  same  size.  Tn  dropping  it  from 
the  spoon,  give  the  mixture  the  form  of  an  QQg,  and  keep  the  me- 
ringues about  two  inches  apart  from  each  other  on  the  paper.  Strew 
over  thetn  some  sifted  sugar,  and  bake  in  a  moderate  oven  for  one- 
half  hour.  As  soon  as  they  begin  to  color,  remove  them  from  the 
oven  ;  take  each  slip  of  paper  by  the  two  ends  and  turn  it  gently  on 
the  table,  and,  with  a  small  spoon,  take  out  the  soft  part  of  each 
meringue.  Spread  some  clean  paper  on  the  board,  turn  the  me- 
ringues upside  down,  and  put  them  into  the  oven  to  harden  and  brown 
on  the  other  side.  When  required  for  table,  fill  them  with  whipped 
cream,  flavored  with  liqueur  or  vanilla,  and  sweeten  with  pounded 
sugar.  Join  two  of  the  meringues  together,  and  pile  them  high  in 
the  dish.  To  vary  their  appearance,  finely-chopped  almonds  or  cur- 
rants may  be  strewn  over  them  before  the  sugar  is  sprinkled  over ; 
and  they  may  be  garnished  with  any  bright-colored  preserve.  Great 
expedition  is  necessary  in  making  this  sweet  dish  :  as,  if  the  me- 
ringues are  not  put  into  the  oven  as  soon  as  the  sugar  and  eggs  are 
mixed,  the  former  melts,  and  the  mixture  would  run  on  the  paper, 
instead  of  keeping  its  egg-shape.  The  sweeter  the  meringues  are 
made,  the  crisper  will  they  be ;  but  if  there  is  not  sufficient  sugar 
mixed  with  them,  they  will  most  likely  be  tough.  They  are  some- 
times colored  with  cochineal ;  and,  if  kept  well  covered  in  a  dry  place, 
will  remain  good  for  a  month  or  six  weeks. 

Open  Jelly,  with  Whipped  Cream. — One  and  one-half  pints  of 
jelly,  one-half  pint  of  cream,  one  glass  of  sherry,  sugar  to  taste. 
Make  the  above  proportion  of  calf's-foot  or  isinglass  jelly,  coloring 
and  flavoring  it  in  any  way  that  may  be  preferred  ;  soak  a  mould,  open 
in  the  centre,  for  about  one-half  hour  in  cold  water ;  fill  it  with  the 
jelly,  and  let  it  remain  in  a  cool  place  until  perfectly  set ;  then  turn 
it  out  on  a  dish,  fill  the  centre  with  whipped  cream,  flavored  with 
sherry  and  sweetened  with  pounded  sugar;  pile  this  crea^i  liig^i  in 
the  centre  and  serve.  The  jelly  should  be  made  of  rather  a  dark 
color,  to  contrast  nicely  with  the  cream.     Cook  three-quarters  of  an 

hour. 

3» 


494  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Blanc-Mange. — A  quarter  of  a  pound  of  sugar,  one  quart  of  milk, 
one  ounce  and  a-half  of  isinglass,  the  rind  of  half  a  lemon,  four  laurel 
leaves.  Put  all  the  ingredients  into  a  lined  saucepan,  and  boil  gently 
until  the  isinglass  is  dissolved  ;  taste  it  occasionally  to  ascertain  when 
it  is  sufficiently  flavored  with  the  laurel  leaves.  Take  them*out,  and 
keep  stirring  the  mixture  over  the  fire  for  about  ten  minutes. 
Strain  it  through  a  fine  sieve  into  a  jug,  and,  when  nearly  cold,  pour 
it  into  a  well-oiled  mould,  omitting  the  sediment  at  the  bottom, 

Apple  Charlotte. — Cut  a  sufficient  number  of  thin  slices  of  white 
bread  to  cover  the  bottom  and  line  the  sides  of  a  baking  dish,  first 
rubbing  it  thickly  with  butter.  Put  thin  slices  of  apples  into  the  dish 
in  layers  till  the  dish  is  full,  strewing  sugar  and  bits  of  butter  between. 
In  the  meantime,  soak  as  many  slices  of  bread  as  will  cover  the  whole 
in  warm  milk,  over  which  place  a  plate  and  a  weight  to  keep  the 
bread  close  upon  the  apples ;  let  it  bake  slowly  for  three  hours.  For 
a  middling-sized  dish,  you  should  use  half  a  pound  of  butter  for  the 
whole. 

Harlequin  Jelly. — This  pretty  dish  is  produced  in  the  following 
manner :  Wash  a  jelly-mould  with  white  of  egg,  melt  a  little  currant 
jelly  and  pour  into  it ;  let  it  cool ;  when  cold,  melt  some  plum  jelly 
and  pour  in  ;  let  this  cool ;  melt  crab-apple  jelly,  and  so  on,  in  layers 
of  various  colors  till  the  mould  is  full.  Care  must  be  taken  that  the 
jellies  aire  only  warm  enough  to  run,  as,  if  they  are  hot,  they  will 
mix,  and  so  spoil  the  effect.  High-colored  jellies  and  cream  blanc- 
mange, moulded  in  layers  in  the  same  way,  make  a  beautiful  harlequin. 
Turn  out  when  cold  and  stiff. 

Baked  Custard. — Beat  seven  eggs  with  three  tablespoonfuls  of 
rolled  sugar;  when  beaten  to  a  froth,  mix  them  with  a  quart  of 
milk;  flavor  it  with  nutmeg;  turn  it  into  cups,  or  else  into  deep  pie- 
plates  that  have  a  lining  and  rim  of  pastry ;  bake  quickly  in  a  hot 
oven. 

Custard. — One  quart  of  milk,  four  eggs ;  sweeten  with  white 
sugar,  a  little  salt ;  put  a  teaspoonful  of  vanilla  on  the  grated  rind  of  a 
lemon ;  pour  it  in  cups,  and  set  these  cups  in  a  dripping-pan  which 


COOKERY   RECIPES.  495 

has  hot  water  enough  in  it  to  half  cover  the  cups ;  put  it  in  a  hot  oven, 
and  take  it  out  as  soon  as  the  custard  has  thickened, 

Apple  Custard. — Take  half  a  dozen  tart,  mellow  apples,  pare  and 
quarter  them,  and  take  out  the  cores ;  put  them  in  a  pan,  with  half  a 
teacup  of  water ;  set  them  on  a  few  coals ;  when  they  begin  to  grow 
soft,  turn  them  into  a  pudding-dish,  and  sprinkle  sugar  on  them; 
beat  eight  eggs  with  rolled  brown  sugar;  mix  them  with  three  pints 
of  milk ;  grate  in  half  a  nutmeg,  and  turn  the  whole  over  the  apples; 
bake  the  custard  between  twenty  and  thirty  minutes. 

Chocolate  Custard. — One  quart  of  milk  and  three  ounces  of  choco- 
late, boiled  together  till  thoroughly  mixed;  then  take  off  the  fire  and 
add  four  eggs  well  beaten  in ;  season  to  taste. 

Rice  Custard. — Take  one  quart  of  milk,  and  thicken  it  while 
boiling  with  one  large  tablespoonful  of  ground  rice.  Beat  five  eggs, 
and  pour  them  gradually  into  the  milk.  Let  the  custard  boil  a  few 
minutes,  and  then  add  a  little  lemon-juice. 

Charlotte  Russe. — Take  three  pints  of  rich  cream,  and  sweeten 
it  to  suit  the  taste,  then  whip  it  to  a  stiff  froth  ;  beat  the  yolks  of  four 
eggs,  with  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  powdered  sugar ;  boil  a  vanilla-bean 
in  a  quart  of  water,  and  an  ounce  of  isinglass  until  the  latter  is  dis- 
solved ;  strain  this,  boiling  hot,  on  the  sugar  and  eggs ;  simmer  a 
few  minutes  over  the  fire,  but  do  not  let  it  boil ;  stir  it  to  prevent 
curdling;  then  set  it  away  to  cool ;  when  perfectly  cool  and  it  begins 
to  stiffen,  stir  in  the  whips  and  put  it  in  the  moulds.  Calf's-foot  jelly 
can  be  used  in  place  of  the  isinglass  if  desired. 

Floating  Island. — Take  a  pint  of  thick  cream,  sweeten  with  fine 
sugar;  grate  in  the  peel  of  one  lemon,  and  add  a  gill  of  sweet  white 
wine;  whisk  it  well  till  you  have  raised  a  good  froth,  then  pour  a  pint 
of  thick  cream  into  a  china  dish ;  take  one  French  roll,  slice  it  thin, 
and  lay  it  over  the  cream  as  lightly  as  possible ;  then  a  layer  of  clear 
calf's-foot  jelly  or  currant  jelly;  then  whip  up  your  cream  and  lay 
on  the  froth  as  high  as  you  can,  and  what  remains  pour  into  the  bot- 
tom of  the  dish.     Garnish  the  rim  with  sweetmeats. 

Cocoanut  for  Dessert. — Grate  a  cocoanut  very  nicely,  add 
powdered  sugar  until  very  sweet ;  serve  with  cream. 


496  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;     OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

A  Dainty  Dish. — The  whites  of  six  eggs  well  beaten  ;  add  currant 
jelly,  and  beat  it  until  well  colored.  To  be  eaten  with  sweetened 
cream. 

CocoANUT  Macaroons. — To  one  grated  cocoanut  add  its  weight  in 
sugar,  and  the  white  of  one  egg  beaten  to  a  froth ;  stir  it  well,  and 
cook  it  a  little ;  then  wet  your  hands,  and  mould  it  into  small  cakes, 
laying  them  upon  buttered  paper.     Bake  in  a  moderate  oven. 

Everton  Candy. — To  make  this  favorite  and  wholesome  candy, 
take  one  and  one-half  pounds  of  moist  sugar,  a  teacup  and  a-half  of 
water  and  one  lemon ;  boil  the  sugar,  butter  and  water  together  with 
half  the  rind  of  the  lemon,  and  when  done,  which  will  be  known  by 
dropping  into  cold  water,  when  it  should  be  quite  crisp,  let  it  stand 
aside  till  the  boiling  has  ceased,  and  then  stir  in  the  juice  of  the 
lemon ;  butter  a  dish,  and  pour  it  in  about  one-quarter  of  an  inch 
thick.     The  fire  must  be  quick  and  the  candy  stirred  all  the  time. 

Chocolate  Kisses. — Three  heaping  tablespoonfuls  of  grated 
chocolate,  one  pound  of  granulated  sugar,  the  whites  of  four  eggs ; 
beat  the  eggs  to  a  froth,  not  too  stiff;  add  the  sugar  and  chocolate, 
and  stir  well  together;  flavor  with  thirty  drops  of  vanilla;  drop  on 
buttered  paper  with  a  teaspoon ;  bake  in  a  moderate  oven  for  ten 
minutes. 

Caramel  Candy. — Three  pounds  of  sugar,  half-pound  of  butter, 
one  pint  of  cream,  one  pound  of  Baker's  chocolate  grated ;  boil  the 
cream,  sugar  and  butter  togetlier,  and  stir  in  the  chocolate  last.  To 
tell  when  it  is  done,  drop  a  little  in  cold  water,  and  if  it  does  not 
spread,  but  hardens  quickly,  take  it  off  the  fire ;  pour  out  thin  over 
dishes  greased  with  butter ;  the  candy  to  be  cut  out  in  small  pieces. 

Taffy  Candy. — One  cup  of  sugar,  one-half  cup  of  molasses,  one- 
fourth  cup  of  butter,  and  a  tablespoonful  of  water.  Boil  all  together 
until  it  will  snap  when  dropped  in  cold  water. 

Chocolate  Caramels. — Take  of  grated  chocolate,  milk,  molasses 
and  sugar  each  one  cupful,  and  a  piece  of  butter  the  size  of  an  egg. 
boil  until  it  will  harden  when  dropped  into  cold  water;  add  vanilla; 
put  in  buttered  pan,  and  before  it  cools  mark  off  in  square  blocks. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  497 

Currant  Jelly  (i). — Put  the  currants  in  a  stone  pot,  and  stand 
them  in  a  kettle  of  hot  water  over  the  fire.  As  the  juice  makes,  pour 
it  out;  put  the  juice  in  a  kettle,  boil  and  skim  it,  then  put  in  the 
sugar  (one  pound  of  sugar  to  a  pint  of  juice),  stirring  it  all  the  while. 
As  soon  as  it  is  dissolved  it  is  done. 

Currant  Jelly  (2). — It  should  always  be  made  during  the  first 
week  in  July,  Pick  the  stems  from  the  currants  and  put  them  in  a 
kettle  and  heat  them,  mashing  so  as  to  express  the  juice  ;  then  squeeze 
them  through  a  huckaback  towel.  Add  one  pound  of  loaf-sugar  to 
every  pint  of  juice.  Put  it  in  a  porcelain-lined  kettle,  and  boil  it 
thirty  minutes  after  it  begins  to  boil. 

Orange  Jelly. — One  pint  of  water,  one  and  a  half  to  two  ounces 
of  isinglass,  half  a  pound  of  loaf-sugar,  one  Seville  orange,  one  lemon, 
about  nine  China  oranges.  Put  the  water  into  a  saucepan,  with  the 
isinglass,  sugar  and  the  rind  of  one  orange,  and  the  same  of  half  a 
lemon,  and  stir  these  over  the  fire  until  the  isinglass  is  dissolved,  and 
remove  the  scum  ;  then  add  to  this  the  juice  of  the  Seville  orange, 
the  juice  of  the  lemon,  and  sufficient  juice  of  China  oranges  to  make 
in  all  one  pint ;  from  eight  to  ten  oranges  will  yield  the  desired  quan- 
tity. Stir  all  together  over  the  fire  until  it  is  just  on  the  point  of 
boiling;  skim  well ;  then  strain  the  jelly  through  a  fine  sieve  or  jelly- 
bag,  and,  when  nearly  cold,  put  it  into  a  mould  previously  wetted, 
and,  when  quite  set,  turn  it  out  on  a  dish  and  garnish  it  to  taste.  To 
insure  this  jelly  being  clear,  the  orange  and  lemon-juice  should  be 
well  strained  and  the  isinglass  clarified  before  they  are  added  to  the 
other  ingredients,  and,  to  heighten  the  color,  a  few  drops  of  prepared 
cochineal  may  be  added. 

How  TO  Mould  Bottled  Jellies. — Uncork  the  bottle ;  place  it  in 
a  saucepan  of  hot  water  until  the  jelly  is  reduced  to  a  liquid  state. 
Taste  it  to  ascertain  whether  it  is  sufficiently  flavored,  and  if  not, 
add  a  little  wine.  Pour  the  jelly  into  moulds  which  have  been 
soaked  in  water ;  let  it  set,  and  turn  it  out  by  placing  the  mould  in 
hot  water  for  a  minute ;  then  wipe  the  outside,  put  a  dish  on  the 
top,  and  turn   it  over  quickly.     The  jelly  should  then  slip  easily 


498  THE    HEARTH,STONE ;    OR,    LIFE   AT    HOME. 

away  from  the  mould  and  be  quite  firm.  It  may  be  garnished  as  taste 
dictates. 

Apple  Jelly. — To  every  pound  of  apples  add  a  pint  of  water,  boil 
till  all  the  goodness  is  extracted ;  then  to  every  pint  of  juice  add  one 
pound  of  sugar;  boil  till  reduced  to  half;  then  add  a  packet  of  gela- 
tine to  each  gallon,  and  the  juice  of  four  lemons. 

Jelly. — Two  ounces  of  isinglass  or  gelatine,  two  quarts  of  water. 
one  pound  and  a-half  of  sugar,  whites  of  three  eggs,  beaten  to  a  foam. 
Stir  them  all  together  cold;  stand  an  hour;  then  put  the  juice  of  three 
lemons  and  peel  of  one ;  lay  in  a  short  time.  Boil  fifteen  minutes, 
and  strain  through  a  bag. 

A  Very  Simple  and  Easy  Method  of  Making  Very  Superior 
Orange  Wine. — Ninety  Seville  oranges,  thirty-two  pounds  of  lump- 
sugar,  water.  Break  up  the  sugar  into  small  pieces,  and  put  it  into  a 
dry,  sweet,  nine-gallon  cask,  placed  in  a  cellar  or  other  storehouse, 
where  it  is  intended  to  be  kept.  Have  ready  close  to  the  cask  two 
large  pans  or  wooden  keelers,  into  one  of  which  put  the  peel  of  the 
oranges  pared  quite  thin,  and  into  the  other  the  pulp  after  the  juice 
has  been  squeezed  from  it.  Strain  the  juice  through  a  piece  of  double 
muslin,  and  put  it  in  the  cask  with  the  sugar.  Then  pour  about  one 
and  one-half  gallons  of  cold  spring-water  on  both  the  peels  and  pulp; 
let  it  stand  for  twenty-four  hours,  and  then  strain  it  into  the  cask ; 
add  more  water  to  the  peels  and  pulp  when  this  is  done,  and  repeat  the 
same  process  every  day  for  a  week ;  it  should  take  about  a  week  to  fill 
up  the  cask.  Be  careful  to  apportion  the  quantity  as  nearly  as  possible 
to  the  seven  days,  and  to  stir  the  contents  of  the  cask  each  day.  On 
the  third  day  after  the  cask  is  full — that  is,  the  tenth  day  after  the 
commencement  of  making — the  cask  may  be  securely  bunged  down. 
This  is  a  very  simple  and  easy  method,  and  the  wine  made  according 
to  it  will  be  pronounced  to  be  most  excellent.  There  is  no  trouble- 
some boiling,  and  all  fermentation  takes  place  in  the  cask.  When 
the  above  directions  are  attended  to,  the  wine  cannot  fail  to  be  good. 
It  should  be  bottled  in  eight  or  nine  months,  and  will  be  fit  for  use 
in  a  twelve-month  after  the  time  of  making.     Ginger  wine  may  be 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  499 

made  in  precisely  the  same  manner,  only,  with  the  nine-gallon  cask 
for  ginger  wine,  two  pounds  of  the  best  whole  ginger,  bruised,  must 
be  put  witli  the  sugar.  It  will  be  found  convenient  to  tie  the  ginger 
looseiv  in  a  muslin  bag. 

Lemon  Syrup. — Two  pounds  of  loaf-sugar,  two  pints  of  water,  one 
ounce  of  citric  acid,  one-half  drachm  of  essence  of  lemon.  Boil  the 
sugar  and  water  together  for  one-quarter  hour,  and  put  it  into  a  basin, 
where  let  it  remain  till  cold.  Beat  the  citric  acid  to  a  powder,  mix 
the  essence  of  lemon  with  it,  then  add  these  two  ingredients  to  the 
syrup  ;  mix  well  and  bottle  for  use.  Two  tablespoonfuls  of  the  syrup 
are  sufficient  for  a  tumbler  of  cold  water,  and  will  be  found  a  very 
refreshing  summer  drink. 

For  a  Summer  Draught. — The  juice  of  one  lemon,  a  tumblerful 
of  cold  water,  pounded  sugar  to  taste,  one-half  teaspoonful  of  car- 
bonate of  soda.  Squeeze  the  juice  from  the  lemon  ;  strain  and  add  it 
to  the  water,  with  sufficient  pounded  sugar  to  sweeten  the  whole 
nicely.  When  well  mixed,  put  in  the  soda ;  stir  well,  and  drink 
while  the  mixture  is  in  an  effervescing  state. 

Currant  Wine. — To  one  gallon  and  a  quart  of  juice  add  two  gal- 
Ions  of  water  and  thirteen  pounds  of  brown  sugar.  Mash  and  strain 
the  currants  through  a  sifter,  and  after  mixing  the  preparations,  put 
it  in  a  vessel  that  is  not  too  close  for  ten  days,  and  then  close  it 
tightly  until  fall.     After  that  time  it  can  be  drawn  off  and  bottled. 

Recipe  for  Making  Blackberry  Wine. — To  one  gallon  of  ripe 
blackberries  add  one  gallon  of  boiling  water ;  let  it  remain  twenty- 
four  hours ;  then  strain  without  pressure,  and  to  every  gallon  of  juice 
add  two  and  a-half  pounds  of  loaf-sugar.  Put  in  a  demijohn,  with  a 
thin  muslin  cloth  tied  over  the  mouth ;  let  it  stand  in  a  cool  place  for 
two  months,  then  strain  through  flannel  ;  add  one  ounce  of  sugar  to 
each  gallon  to  clear  it.  Then  bottle,  and  in  three  weeks  it  is  ready 
for  use. 

Elderberry  Wine. — Take  one  quart  of  pure  elderberry  juice,  two 
quarts  water,  three  pounds  sugar  (the  best  sugar  for  this  purpose  is 
what  we  call  molasses- sugar,  viz. :  sugar  that  settles  from  molasses 


500  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

into  the  bottom  of  hogsheads)  ;  mix  all  together,  and  let  it  /erment 
until  it  works  itself  clear ;  strain  and  bottle ;  leave  the  bottles  un- 
corked until  it  is  done  working,  then  cork  and  put  away  in  a  cellar, 
and  in  a  few  months  you  will  have  good  wine,  but  age  will  improve 

it. 

PRESERVES,  CANNED  FRUITS,  Etc. 

To  Preserve  Fruit. — Fruit  may  be  preserved  with  honey  by 
putting  the  fruit  first  in  the  can,  then  pour  the  honey  over  it,  and 
seal  air-tight.  When  the  honey  is  poured  from  the  fruit  it  will  have 
the  flavor  and  appearance  of  jell\',  making  a  rich  dessert. 

To  Preserve  Pears. — Take  small,  rich,  fair  fruit,  as  soon  as  the 
pips  are  black ;  set  it  over  the  fire  in  a  kettle,  with  water  to  cover 
them ;  let  them  simmer  until  they  yield  to  the  pressure  of  the  finger; 
then,  with  a  skimmer,  remove  them  to  cold  water ;  pare  them  neatly, 
leaving  on  a  little  of  the  stem  and  the  blossom  end.  Pierce  them  at 
the  blossom  end  to  the  core;  then  make  a  syrup  of  a  pound  of  sugar 
for  each  pound  of  fruit ;  when  it  is  boiling  hot  pour  it  over  the  pears, 
and  let  it  stand  until  the  next  day.  Then  drain  it  off,  making  it  boil- 
ing hot,  and  again  pour  it  over.  After  a  day  or  two  put  the  fruit  in 
the  syrup  over  the  fire,  and  boil  gently  until  it  is  clear;  put  it  in  the 
jars  or  spread  it  on  dishes  ;  boil  the  syrup  thick,  then  put  it  and  the 
fruit  in  jars. 

Stewed  Pears. — If  small  and  ripe,  cut  out  the  blossom  end  with- 
out paring  or  coring ;  put  into  a  sauce-pan,  with  water  enough  to 
cover  them,  and  stew  until  tender;  add  one-half  cup  of  sugar  for 
every  quart  of  pears,  and  stew  all  together  ten  minutes ;  take  out  the 
pears  and  lay  them  in  a  covered  bowl  to  keep  warm;  add  to  the  syrup 
a  little  ginger  or  a  few  cloves ;  boil  fifteen  minutes  longer,  and  pour 
over  the  fruit  hot. 

Watermelon  Preserves. — Peel  the  shell  or  skin  off;  cutting  in 
any  sized  pieces.  Lay  in  alum-water  over  night,  then  take  out  and 
drain.  Use  a  pound  of  rind  to  a  pound  of  sugar  in  preserving,  unless 
you  can  the  fruit,  then  it  does  not  require  near  as  much  sugar,  and 
makes  a  very  nice  sauce  to  be  eaten  with  cream. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  5OI 

Preserved  Orange-Peel. — Weigh  the  oranges  whole,  and  allow 
pound  to  pound ;  peel  the  oranges  neatly,  and  cut  the  rinds  into 
narrow  shreds ;  boil  till  tender,  changing  the  water  twice,  replenish- 
ing with  hot  from  the  tea-kettle;  squeeze  the  strained  juice  of  the 
oranges  over  the  sugar ;  let  this  heat  to  a  boil.  Put  in  the  shreds, 
and  boil  twenty  minutes.  Lemon-peel  can  be  preserved  in  the  same 
way,  only  allowing  more  sugar. 

Preserved  Strawberries. — Allow  pound  to  pound  sugar  and 
fruit ;  put  in  a  preserving  kettle  together  over  a  slow  fire  till  the 
sugar  melts  ;  boil  twenty-five  minutes  fast.  Take  out  the  fruit  in  a 
perforated  skimmer,  and  fill  your  jars  three-fourths  full.  Boil  and 
skim  the  syrup  five  minutes  more,  pour  it  over  the  fruit,  filling  the 
jars,  and  seal  up  while  hot.     Keep  in  a  cool,  dry  place. 

To  Preserve  Grapes  (i). — Procure  some  tin  cases  of  any  con- 
venient size,  and  put  in  a  layer  of  dry  sand  or  charcoal,  and  then  a 
bunch  of  grapes  until  the  case  is  full ;  seal  down  the  lid  and  make  them 
air-tight,  and  bury  them  to  any  convenient  depth  in  the  ground. 

To  Preserve  Grapes  (2). — First,  pick  off  all  unsound  or  unripe 
ones,  and  lay  the  clusters  in  an  empty  room  on  papers  until  dry,  for  in 
all  packages  some  will  be  crushed  and  dampen  others ;  then  in  the 
crate  place  first  a  layer  of  grapes,  then  a  thickness  of  paper,  so  as  to 
exclude  the  air  and  keep  them  separate ;  then  grapes  and  then  paper, 
and  so  on  until  you  have  three  or  four  layers,  and  no  more  than  four. 
If  the  box  is  to  hold  more,  put  in  a  partition  to  support  the  others 
that  are  to  be  packed. 

Preserved  Grapes  in  Bunches. — Take  out  the  stones  from  the 
bunches  with  a  pin,  breaking  them  as  little  as  possible ;  boil  some 
clarified  sugar  to  nearly  candying  point ;  then  put  in  sufficient  grapes 
to  cover  the  bottom  of  the  preserving  kettle,  without  laying  them  on 
each  other,  and  boil  for  nearly  five  minutes,  merely  to  extract  all  the 
juice;  lay  them  in  an  earthen  pan  and  pour  the  syrup  over  them; 
cover  with  paper,  and  the  next  day  boil  the  syrup,  skimming  it  well, 
for  five  minutes  ;  put  in  the  grapes,  let  them  boil  a  minute  or  two; 
put  them  in  pots,  and  pour  the  syrup  over  them,  after  which  tie 
down. 


502  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

Preserving  Grapes  with  Honey. — Take  seven  pounds  of  sound 
grapes  on  the  stems,  have  the  branches  as  perfect  as  possible,  and 
pack  them  snugly,  without  breaking,  in  a  stout  jar.  Make  a  syrup  of 
four  pounds  of  honey  and  one  pint  of  vinegar,  with  cloves  and  cinna- 
mon to  suit,  or  about  three  ounces  of  each  as  a  rule.  Boil  them  well 
together  for  twenty  minutes,  and  skim  well,  then  turn  while  boiling 
hot  over  the  grapes,  and  seal  immediately.  They  will  keep  for 
years,  and  are  exceedingly  nice.  Apples,  peaches  and  plums  may  be 
preserved  in  the  same  way. 

Grapes  Preserved  in  Pumpkins. — The  Chinese  have  a  method  of 
preserving  grapes  so  as  to  have  them  at  hand  during  the  entire  year, 
by  cutting  a  circular  piece  out  of  a  ripe  pumpkin,  or  gourd,  making 
an  aperture  large  enough  to  admit  the  hand.  The  interior  is  then 
completely  cleaned  out,  the  ripe  grapes  are  then  placed  inside,  and 
the  cover  replaced  and  pressed  in  firmly.  The  pumpkins  are  then 
kept  in  a  cool  place,  and  the  grapes  will  be  found  to  retain  their  fresh- 
ness for  a  very  long  time. 

Peaches  Preserved  in  Brandy. — To  every  pound  of  fruit,  weighed 
before  being  stoned,  allow  one-quarter  pound  of  finely  pounded  loaf- 
sugar;  brandy.  Let  the  fruit  be  gathered  in  dry  weather;  wipe  and 
weigh  it,  and  remove  the  stones  as  carefully  as  possible,  without  in- 
juring the  peaches  much.  Put  them  into  a  jar,  sprinkle  amongst 
them  pounded  loaf-sugar  in  the  above  proportion,  and  pour  brandy 
over  the  fruit.  Cover  the  jar  down  closely,  place  it  in  a  saucepan 
of  boiling  water  over  the  fire,  and  bring  the  brandy  to  the  simrpering- 
point,  but  do  not  allow  it  to  boil.  Take  the  fruit  out  carefully  with- 
out breaking  it;  put  it  into  small  jars,  pour  over  it  the  brandy,  and, 
when  cold,  exclude  the  air  by  covering  the  jars  with  bladders,  or 
tissue-paper  brushed  over  on  both  sisies  with  the  white  of  an  egg. 
Apricots  may  be  done  in  the  same  manner,  and,  if  properly  prepared, 
will  be  found  delicious.  Time:  From  ten  to  twenty  minutes  to  bring 
the  brandy  to  the  simmering-point. 

To  Preserve  Oranges. — Take  those  that  are  perfectly  fresh,  and 
wrap  separately  in  soft  papers ;   put  them  in  glass  jars  or  very  light 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  5O3 

boxes,  with  white  sand ;  let  the  sand  be  well  dried ;  put  the  sand  in 
so  that  the  fruit  will  not  touch  each  other ;  close  the  jar  tight,  and 
put  it  in  a  cool,  dry  place,  but  where  the  fruit  will  not  freeze.  Lemons 
may  be  preserved  in  the  same  way. 

Raspberry  Lily. — Boil  rice  so  that  the  kernels  will  be  as  distinct 
as  possible ;  spread  a  spoonful  upon  a  dessert-plate ;  cover  it  all  but 
the  edges  with  ripe  raspberries ;  pour  over  it  two  spoonfuls  of  sweet- 
ened strawberry  or  raspberry  juice;  sprinkle  over  the  whole  some 
white  sugar,  and  serve  cold. 

Drying  Fruit. — Commence  as  soon  as  fully  mature.  If  large 
quantities  are  to  be  preserved  in  this  way,  it  will  pay  to  get  a  fruit- 
drier  of  some  kind,  but  as  most  private  families  only  dry  enough  for 
home  use,  the  common  method  is  to  employ  the  heat  of  the  sun. 
Where  there  are  hot-bed  sashes,  these  may  be  used  to  great  advan- 
tage. A  frame  raised  a  foot  or  so  from  the  ground  upon  legs,  and 
covered  with  sashes,  will  dry  fruit  and  vegetables  rapidly  and  cheaply. 
Make  ventilating  holes  and  cover  with  gauze. 

Dried  Apples. — A  bushel  of  fresh  apples,  weighing  about  fifty 
pounds,  will  furnish  about  seven  pounds  of  good  dried  fruit;  or,  if 
the  cores  are  not  cut  out  or  the  skins  removed,  there  will  be  nine 
dried  pounds.  There  is,  consequently,  about  eighty-two  per  cent,  of 
water  in  the  apples.  Fruits  generally  have  eighty-five  per  cent,  of 
water. 

« 

A  Nice  Way  to  Bake  Apples. — Take  sour  apples ;  remove  the 
cores ;  place  the  apples  in  a  deep  dish  or  tin,  fill  the  cavities  where 
the  cores  came  out  with  sugar,  pour  a  cup  of  hot  water  in  the  tin ; 
bake  in  a  quick  oven. 

Apple  Custard. — A  pint  of  .stewed  apples,  a  pint  of  milk,  yolks  of 
three  eggs,  juice  and  rind  of  half  a  lemon,  juice  of  small  orange; 
sugar  to  taste.  Beat  well  together;  bake,  and,  when  done,  whisk 
the  whites  with  a  little  sugar,  and  spread  over  the  top.  Brown  in  a 
quick  oven. 

Sealed  Apples. — Pare  and  core  your  apples,  and  then  place  them 
in  an  earthen  pipkin  or  stone  jar;  if  juicy,  they  will   need  no  water; 


504  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

put  a  little  bread-paste  inside  the  rim  of  the  jar,  and  crowd  the  cover 
down  into  it ;  then  put  it  into  a  very  slow  oven  until  thoroughly  cooked, 
which  will  require  two  or  three  hours,  according  to  the  heat  of  the 
oven.  Experience  only  can  decide  the  requisite  amount  of  cooking 
in  this  as  in  many  other  things.  The  reason  for  sealing  them  is,  that 
the  aroma  of  the  fruit  is  thus  ali  preserved. 

Apples  may  be  kept  till  June  by  taking  sound  ones,  and,  after 
wiping  each  apple  perfectly  dry  and  clean,  pack  them  in  tight  barrels, 
with  a  layer  of  bran  to  each  layer  of  apples ;  envelop  the  barrel  in  a 
linen  cloth  to  keep  the  frost  out,  and  keep  it  in  a  cool  place. 

Quinces. — To  one  pound  of  sugar  and  one  pound  of  fruit  put  a 
pint  of  water,  and  put  them  all  in  the  kettle  together,  and  let  them 
boil  as  fast  as  possible,  without  burning,  and  so  that  a  constant  foam 
will  cover  the  fruit.     In  twenty  minutes  they  are  done. 

Canning  Fruit. — The  process  is  very  simple.  Place  a  clean  and 
very  wet  towel  in  a  pan,  away  from  currents  of  air ,  set  the  can  to  be 
filled  on  the  towel ;  put  a  silver  spoon  in  it;  then  set  the  fruit-funnel 
in  and  pour  in  the  boiling  fruit.  Remove  the  funnel  and  spoon,  fill 
the  can  to  the  very  top,  and  seal  tightly.  Then,  when  nearly  cold 
give  the  screw  ring,  if  possible,  another  turn,  or  part  of  a  turn. 
Stand  the  cans  upside  down  to  make  sure  that  they  are  tight.  If 
<the  syrup  get  out  the  air  cannot  get  in,  and  the  fruit  will  keep. 

Jam. — The  best  of  jam  is  made  of  an  equal  quantity  of  gooseberries 
and  raspberries.  Two  or  more  of  any  kinds  of  berries  or  of  fruit, 
make  better  jam  mixed  than  when  used  singly.  Boiling  fruit  a  long 
time  and  skimming  it  well,  without  the  sugar,  and  without  a  cover  to 
the  preserving-pan,  is  a  very  economical  and  excellent  way  of  pre- 
serving— economical,  because  the  bulk  of  the  scum  rises  from  the 
fruit,  and  not  from  the  sugar,  if  the  latter  is  good  ;  and  boiling  it  with- 
out a  cover  allows  the  evaporation  of  the  watery  particles  therefrom, 
and  the  preserves  keep  firm  and  well-flavored.  The  proportions  are 
three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  sugar  to  a  pound  of  fruit.  Jam  made  of 
any  kind  of  berries  in  this  way  is  excellent. 

Cherry  Jam. — To  every  pound  of  fruit  weighed  before  stoning. 


COOKERY    RECIPES,  505 

allow  one-half  pound  of  sugar;  to  every  six  pounds  of  fruit  allow  one 
pint  of  red  currant-juice,  and  to  every  pint  of  juice  one  pound  of 
sugar.  Weigh  the  fruit  before  stoning,  and  allow  half  the  weight  of 
sugar;  stone  the  cherries,  and  boil  them  in  a  preserving-pan  until 
nearly  all  the  juice  is  dried  up;  then  add  the  sugar,  which  should  be 
crushed  to  powder,  and  the  currant-juice,  allowing  one  pint  to  every 
six  pounds  of  cherries  (original  weight),  and  one  pound  of  sugar  to 
every  pint  of  juice.  Boil  all  together  until  it  jellies,  which  will  be  in 
from  twenty  minutes  to  one-half  hour;  skim  the  jam  well,  keep  it 
well  stirred,  and,  a  few  minutes  before  it  is  done,  crack  some  of  the 
stones  and  add  the  kernels ;  these  impart  a  very  delicious  flavor  to 
the  jam.  Time — according  to  the  quality  of  the  cherries,  from  three- 
quarters  to  one  hour  to  boil  them  ;  twenty  minutes  to  one-half  hour 
with  the  sugar. 

Raspberry  Jam. — Use  three-fourths  of  a  pound  of  sugar  to  every 
pound  of  fruit.  Put  the  fruit  on  alone,  or  with  the  addition  of  one 
pint  of  currant-juice  to  every  four  pounds  of  raspberries.  Boil  half 
an  hour,  mashing  and  stirring  well ;  add  the  sugar,  and  cook  twenty 
minutes  more.  Blackberry  jam  is  very  good  made  in  the  same  way, 
only  omitting  the  currant-juice. 

Orange  Marmalade  {superior). — To  one  pound  of  crushed  sugar 
allow  one  pound  of  oranges,  with  the  rinds.  Then  pour  off  the  yel- 
low rind  of  half  the  oranges,  and  put  it  over  the  fire  in  cold  water ; 
cover  very  tight  and  simmer  till  tender  ;  grate  the  yellow  rind  of  the 
remaining  oranges,  and  set  aside ;  quarter  the  oranges,  and  squeeze 
out  all  the  juice  and  pulp,  removing  all  the  seeds  and  white  skin. 
Put  the  sugar  in  the  kettle,  and  to  each  pound  add  one  pint  of  cold 
water;  allow  the  white  of  one  Qg^  to  every  two  pounds  of  sugar. 
"When  the  sugar  is  all  dissolved,  put  it  over  the  fire,  let  it  boil,  and 
skim  till  quite  clear  and  thick  ;  take  the  boiled  parings  and  pound  to 
a  paste  in  a  mortar ;  put  this  in  the  syrup,  boil  and  stir  ten  minutes, 
then  add  the  pulp,  juice  and  grated  rind ;  boil  all  together  for  half  an 
hour,  till  it  is  a  transparent  mass.  Lemons  may  be  prepared  in  the 
same  way,  but  require  more  sugar. 


5o6 


THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 


Brandy  Pineapple. — Cut  your  pines  in  thin  slices ;  four  pounds  of 
fruit  to  three  pounds  of  sugar ;  lay  the  sugar  in  between  the  slices, 
and  pour  one  pint  of  white  brandy  over  them. 

MouLDiNESS. — Preserves  and  jellies  may  be  kept  from  mouldiness 
by  covering  the  surface  Tvith  pulverized  loaf-sugar.  Thus  protected 
they  will  keep  for  years. 

The  following  list  gives  the  amount  of  sugar  for  a  quart  jar,  and 
the  number  of  minutes  for  boiling  fruit  in  the  jars : 

Cherries  .         .         .         .         .     6  ounces,    8  minutes. 

Raspberries 

Blackberries     . 

Strawberries 

Whortleberries 

Ripe  currants 

Grapes 

Peaches 

Bartlett  pears 

Pineapples    . 

Crab  apples 

Sour  apples 

Plums 

Pie-plants 

Quinces   . 

Fruit  Flavoring. — Below  are  instructions  by  which  all  con- 
fectioners may  extract  and  preserve  their  own  fruit  essences,  and 
so  guard  the  health  and  add  to  the  pleasure  of  all  for  whom  they 
provide.  Among  the  juicy  fruits  are  strawberries,  raspberries,  black- 
berries, cherries  and  currants ;  among  non-juicy  fruits  are  the  apple, 
pears,  peaches,  quinces,  apricots  and  plums. 

Mash  the  juicy  fruits  in  a  basin  to  a  pulp.  Place  on  the  fire 
and  make  scalding  hot.  Now  pour  into  a  hair-sieve  and  allow  the 
juice  to  strain  through.  Put  into  bottles  and  securely  tie  down. 
Place  these  bottles  in  a  cauldron  of  cold  water  and  boil  for  twenty 


4 

8 

6 

8 

8 

8 

4 

8 

8 

6 

8 

lO 

4 

lO 

6 

20 

6 

15 

8 

25 

6 

10 

lO 

lO 

lO 

lO 

lO 

lO 

COOKERY    RECIPES. 


507 


minutes.     Remove  from  the  fire  and  allow  to  remain  in  the  cauldron 
until  cold.     Then  set  away  for  use.  , 

In  the  case  of  non-juicy  fruits,  such  as  apples,  pears,  peaches, 
etc.,  put  the  fruit  into  a  basin.  Cover  with  water  and  boil  to  a 
pulp.  Now  place  on  a  hair-sieve  and  allow  to  drain  without  any 
pressing.  Observe  now  that  it  is  only  the  liquor  which  passes 
through  the  sieve  without  pressing  which  is  to  be  used  for  flavoring 
purposes.  What  remains  in  the  form  of  pulp  is  not  adapted  for 
these  uses.  Now  put  the  juice  obtained  as  above  into  bottles,  and 
proceed  to  treat  as  already  laid  down  for  the  juicy  fruits. 

'The  foregoing  processes  are  to  be  gone  through  with  in  the  case 
where  the  extracts  are  to  be  kept  transparent  and  clear,  as  for 
syrups,  cordials,  and  beverages. 

In  case  where  the  flavorings  are  to  be  used  for  any  purpose 
where  transparency  or  clearness  is  not  desirable,  such  as  for  ice- 
creams, fruit-ices,  or  bonbons,  use  not  only  the  clear  fluid,  but  the 
pulp  of  the  fruit  also.  For  these  opaque  purposes  save  and  utilize 
everything  of  the  fruit  except  the  skins  and  seeds.  This  pulp  to  be 
treated  as  already  laid  down. 

As  thus  obtained  and  preserved  our  confectioners  can  supply  them- 
selves with  a  quantity  of  perfectly  pure  extracts  of  all  their  favorite 
fruits,  and  which  can  always  be  at  hand  for  flavoring  every  descrip- 
tion of  pastry,  cakes,  pies,  tarts,  puddings,  creams,  ices,  and  bever- 
ages, and  at  any  season  of  the  year.  Especially  when  there  is  any 
one  in  the  house  who  is  sick  or  feverish,  cordials  may  be  flavored 
with  these  delightful  sub-acids — these  remedies  and  restoratives  of 
kind  mother  Nature  herself — such  as  will  shoot  through  all  the  veins 
of  the  most  debilitated  and  infirm  the  most  delicious  sensations  of 
happiness  and  hope. 

Initials  on  Fruit. — Did  you  ever  see  a  name  printed  on  a  grow- 
ing apple,  pear,  or  peach  f  No !  Well,  if  you  wish  to  have  that 
pleasure,  this  is  the  way  to  obtain  it :  While  the  fruit  yet  hangs  green 
upon  the  tree,  make  up  your  mind  which  is  the  very  biggest  and 
most  promising  specimen  of  all.     Next,  cut  from  thin,  brown  paper 


508  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

the  initials  of  the  name  of  your  little  brother  or  sister  or  chief  crony, 
with  round  specks  for  the  dots  after  the  letters,  and  the  letters  them- 
selves plain  and  thick.  Then  paste  these  letters  and  dots  on  that 
side  of  the  apple  which  is  most  turned  toward  the  sun,  taking  care 
not  to  loosen  the  fruit's  hold  upon  its  stem.  As  soon  as  the  apple 
is  ripe,  take  off  the  paper  cuttings,  which,  having  shut  out  the  red- 
dening rays  of  the  sun,  have  kept  the  fruit  green  just  beneath  them, 
so  that  the  name  or  initials  now  show  plainly.  After  that,  bring  the 
owner  of  the  name  to  play  beneath  the  tree,  and  say  presently  : 
"  Why,  what  are  those  queer  marks  on  that  apple  up  there  ! "  You 
will  find  this  quite  a  pleasant  way  to  surprise  the  very  little  ones, 
and,  of  course,  you  can  print  a  short,  pet  name  as  easily  as  initials. 

A  Good  Dessert. — Half  a  pound  or  more  of  grapes,  taken  as  a 
**  dessert "  half  an  hour  before  the  two  or  three  regular  meals  of  the 
day,  with  nothing  whatever  between,  will,  in  a  few  days,  remove  a 
great  variety  of  symptoms  :  those,  for  example,  which  result  from 
biliousness,  such  as  bad  taste  in  the  mouth  of  mornings,  aversion  to 
meats,  sleepiness,  indisposition  to  exercise,  indifference,  dullness, 
headache,  cold  feet,  confined  condition  of  the  system,  depression  of 
spirits  and  chilliness.  The  immediate  cause  of  all  the  discomfort 
is  a  "  confined  "  condition  of  the  system ;  the  seeds  of  the  grapes  act 
as  an  irritant  and  dissolve  the  solid  matter  contained  in  the  intestines, 
while  the  acidity  of  the  grapes  relieves  the  system  of  bile.  The 
covering  of  the  grapes  should  not  be  swallowed. 

A  Garnish  for  Sweet  Dishes. — A  few  dried  or  preserved  cher- 
ries, with  stones  out,  are  the  very  best  thing  possible  to  garnish 

sweet  dishes. 

PICKLES  AND  CATSUPS. 

To  Pickle  Lemons  with  the  Peel  on. — Six  lemons,  two  quarts 
of  boiling  water ;  to  each  quart  of  vinegar  allow  half  an  ounce  of* 
cloves,  half  an  ounce  of  white  pepper,  one  ounce  of  bruised  ginger,  a 
quarter-ounce  of  mace  and  chilies,  one  ounce  of  mustard-seed,  half  a 
stick  of  sliced  horseradish,  a  few  cloves  of  garlic.  Put  the  lemons 
into  a  brine  that  will  bear  an  egg ;  let  them  remain  in  it  six  days, 


COOKERY     RECIPES.  5O9 

stirring  them  every  day;  have  ready  two  quarts  of  boiling  water,  put 
in  the  lemons,  and  allow  them  to  boil  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour ;  take 
them  out,  and  let  them  lie  in  a  cloth  until  perfectly  dry  and  cold. 
Boil  up  sufficient  vinegar  to  cover  the  lemons,  with  all  the  above 
ingredients,  allowing  the  same  proportion  as  stated  to  each  quart  of 
vinegar.  Pack  the  lemons  in  a  jar,  pour  over  the  vinegar,  etc.,  boil- 
ing hot,  and  tie  down  with  a  bladder.  They  will  be  fit  for  use  in 
about  twelve  months,  or  ratlier  sooner. 

To  Pickle  Lemons  without  the  Peel. — Six  lemons,  one  pound 
of  fine  salt ;  to  each  quart  of  vinegar,  the  same  ingredients  as  above. 
Peel  the  lemons,  slit  each  one  down  three  times,  so  as  not  to  divide 
them,  and  rub  the  salt  v/ell  into  the  divisions.  Place  them  in  a  pan, 
where  they  must  remain  for  a  week,  turning  them  every  other  day ; 
then  put  them  in  a  Dutch  oten  before  a  clear  fire  until  the  salt  has 
become  perfectly  dry;  then  arrange  them  in  a  jar ;  pour  over  sufficient 
boiling  vinegar  to  cover  them,  to  which  have  been  added  the  ingre- 
dients mentioned  in  the  foregoing  recipe ;  tie  down  closely,  and  in 
about  nine  months  they  will  be  fit  for  use. 

Knickerbocker  Pickle. — For  beef,  mutton  and  pork.  Six  gallons 
of  spring  water,  nine  pounds  of  salt  (one-half  coarse,  two  and  a-half 
finej,  six  pounds  of  coarse  brown  sugar,  one  quart  of  molasses,  three 
ounces  of  saltpetre,  one  ounce  of  pearl-ash.  Boil  well  and  skim  care- 
fully. When  cold,  pour  over  the  meat  previously  packed  in  a  barrel. 
This  quantity  will  answer  for  one  hundred  pounds  of  meat. 

To  Pjckle  Green  Tomatoes. — One  gallon  of  sliced  green  toma- 
toes, eight  onions  sliced;  salt  them  and  let  them  stand  over  night;  in 
the  morning  drain  them  well;  take  one  tablespoonful  of  black  pepper, 
one  tablespoonful  of  allspice,  two  tablespoonfuls  of  cloves,  three  table- 
.spoonfuls  of  mustard — all  ground ;  one-half  pint  of  mustard-seed,  one- 
half  pint  of  grated  horseradish,  six  green  peppers,  cut  fine;  mix  them 
well  with  the  tomatoes  and  onions,  and  pour  three  pints  of  boiling 
vinegar  on. 

To  Pickle  Red  Tomatoes. — Prick  the  tomatoes  with  a  fork,  put 
them  in  strong  brine  for  eight  days,  then  put  them  in  vinegar  twcnty- 
32 


510  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

four  hours ;  to  a  peck  of  tomatoes  add  a  bottle  of  mustard,  one  ounce 
of  cloves,  one  ounce  of  ground  pepper,  one  dozen  large  onions,  sliced; 
laying  alternately  a  layer  of  tomatoes,  spice  and  onions ;  pour  strong 
vinegar,  cold,  over  them. 

Indian  or  Yellow  Pickle  {Mrs.  Reynolds'  recipe). — One  gallon 
best  white-wine  vinegar,  one  ounce  of  black  pepper,  one  ounce  of 
white  pepper,  one  ounce  of  long  pepper,  one  ounce  of  ginger,  one 
ounce  of  cloves,  one  ounce  of  mustard-seed,  one  ounce  of  cayenne-, 
one  ounce  of  turmeric.  Boil  all  together;  let  it  stand  till  cold;  salt 
and  dry  everything  as  it  comes  in  season,  and  put  it  in  the  pickle ; 
then  put  plenty  of  horseradish  and  garlic — if  you  like  it — but  do  not 
boil  that.  The  cauliflower  and  cow-cabbage  are  best  in  autumn ;  put 
no  walnuts  or  onions  in. 

Mangoes. — Muskmelons  should  be  picked  for  mangoes  when  they 
are  green  and  hard.  They  should  be  cut  open  after  they  have  been 
in  salt  water  ten  days,  the  inside  scraped  out  clean,  and  filled  with 
mustard-seed,  allspice,  horseradish,  small  onions,  etc.,  and  sewed  up 
again.     Scalding  vinegar  poured  upon  them. 

Mushrooms. — Peel  and  stew  them  with  just  water  enough  to  pre- 
vent their  sticking' at  the  bottom  of  the  pan.  Shake  them  occasion- 
ally, to  prevent  their  burning.  When  tender,  take  them  up  and  put 
them  in  scalding-hot  vinegar,  spiced  with  mace,  cloves  and  pepper- 
■  corns ;  add  a  little  salt.  Cork  them  tight  in  bottles  if  you  wish  to 
keep  them  long. 

Onion  and  Cucumber  Pickles. — To  every  dozen  of  cucumbers 
put  three  large  onions ;  cut  both  in  thick  slices,  and  sprinkle  salt 
over  them.  Next  day  drain  them  for  five  or  six  hours ;  then  put 
them  into  a  stone  jar ;  pour  boiling  vinegar  over  them,  and  keep  them 
in  a  warm  place ;  repeat  the  boiling  vinegar,  and  stop  them  up  again 
instantly,  and  so  on  till  green ;  the  last  time  put  in  pepper  and 
ginger  ;  keep  in  stone  jars.  The  vinegar  will  be  found  very  good  for 
winter-salads. 

To  Pickle  Gherkins. — Put  them  in  strong  brine ;  keep  them  in  a 
warm  place.     When  they  turn  yellow,  drain  off  the  brine  and  turn 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  5II 

hot  vinegar  on  them.  Let  them  remain  in  it  till  they  turn  green, 
keeping  them  in  a  warm  place.  Then  turn  off  the  vinegar — add  fresh 
scalding-hot  vinegar,  spiced  with  mace,  allspice  and  peppercorns;  add 
alum  and  salt  in  the  same  proportion  as  for  cucumbers. 

Nasturtiums. — Take  them,  when  small  and  green,  put  them  in  salt 
and  water ;  change  the  water  once  in  three  days.  When  you  have 
done  collecting  the  nasturtiums,  turn  off  the  brine  and  pour  on 
scalding-hot  vinegar.  Put  them  in  bottles  and  seal  them.  They  are 
delightful  seasoning  for  other  pickles. 

Pickled  Grapes. — Seven  pounds  of  ripe  grapes,  picked  from 
the  stems,  and  boiled  until  the  skins  will  pass  through  a  colander ; 
three  and  a-half  pounds  of  sugar,  one-half  pint  of  vinegar,  one  ounce 
each  of  whole  cloves,  cinnamon  and  allspice ;  all  boiled  together 
until  it  jellies.  Put  in  glasses,  and  turn  out  in  form.  These  pickles 
are  especially  nice  for  the  tea-table. 

To  Pickle  Peaches  (i). — Fill  a  stone  jar  with  peaches,  sticking 
cloves  into  each  one,  and  rubbing  off  the  skin  with  a  towel ;  or,  by 
throwing  the  fruit  into  boiling  water  for  two  minutes,  and  then  rub- 
bing off  the  skins;  to  eight  pounds  of  fruit  add  four  pounds  of  sugar, 
one  quart  of  vinegar,  and  a  httle  stick  cinnamon ;  make  this  mixture 
scalding  hot,  and,  four  mornings  in  succession,  pour  over  the  fruit, 
when  it  will  be  ready  for  use. 

To  Pickle  Peaches  (2). — To  seven  pounds  of  peaches  take  one 
quart  of  vinegar,  two  pounds  of  sugar,  mace  and  cloves ;  make  a 
syrup  of  the  vinegar  and  sugar,  and  pour  over  the  fruit  boiling  hot; 
then  stand  the  jar  in  a  kettle  of  boiling  water  two  or  three  hours. 

To  Pickle  Peaches  (3). — Select  ripe,  but  not  soft  peaches ;  rub 
well  with  a  cloth;  place  them  in  a  crock,  and  for  each  quart  of  vinegar 
add  four  pounds  of  sugar;  scald  the  vinegar  and  pour  it  ov^er  the 
peaches ;  let  them  stand  two  or  three  days ;  then  pour  the  vinegar 
from  the  peaches ;  heat  scalding  hot,  and  pour  over  the  peaches,  and 
repeat  this  operation  the  third  time ;  season  with  stick  cinnamon. 

Pickled  Peppers. — Select  the  peppers,  and  then  with  a  penknife 
cut  half  way  round  the  stem  end,  removing  the  seeds  with  the  knife 


512  THE    hearthstone;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

or  the  fingers ;  be  careful  to  use  the  knife  if  there  are  any  scratches 
on  the  hands,  for  in  that  case  the  sting  would  be  very  painful ;  soak 
the  peppers  in  strong  brine  for  three  days,  then  freshen  in  cold  water 
twenty-four  hours ;  stuff  with  small  onions,  small  cucumbers  (which 
have  been  in  brine  for  two  days),  mustard-seed  and  chopped  cabbage, 
and  sew  up  the  slit ;  then  pack  in  stone  jars  and  pour  scalding  vine- 
gar over  them ;  repeat  the  scalding  two  more  times,  then  tie  up  and 
keep  in  a  cool  place. 

Pickled  Onions. — One  gallon  of  pickling  onions,  salt  and  water, 
milk ;  to  each  half  a  gallon  of  vinegar,  one  ounce  of  bruised  ginger, 
one-quarter  teaspoonful  of  cayenne,  one  ounce  of  allspice,  one  ounce 
of  whole  black  pepper,  one-quarter  ounce  of  whole  nutmeg  bruised, 
eight  cloves,  one-quarter  ounce  of  mace.  Gather  the  onions,  which 
should  not  be  too  small,  when  they  are  quite  dry  and  ripe ;  wipe  off 
the  dirt,  but  do  not  pare  them ;  make  a  strong  solution  of  salt  and 
water,  into  which  put  the  onions,  and  change  this  morning  and  night 
for  three  days,  and  save  the  last  brine  they  are  put  in.  Then  take 
the  outside  skin  off,  and  put  them  into  a  tin  saucepan  capable  of  hold- 
ing them  all,  as  they  are  always  better  done  together.  Now  take 
equal  quantities  of  milk  and  the  last  salt  and  water  the  onions  were 
in,  and  pour  this  to  them ;  to  this  add  two  large  spoonfuls  of  salt,  put 
them  over  the  fire,  and  watch  them  very  attentively.  Keep  con- 
stantly turning  the  onions  about  with  a  wooden  skimmer,  those  at  the 
bottom  to  the  top,  and  vice  versa ;  and  let  the  milk  and  water  run 
through  the  holes  of  the  skimmer.  Remember  the  onions  must  never 
boil,  for  if  they  do  they  will  be  good  for  nothing;  and  they  should 
be  quite  transparent.  Keep  the  onions  stirred  for  a  few  minutes,  and, 
in  stirring  them,  be  particular  not  to  break  them ;  then  have  ready  a 
pan  with  a  colander,  into  which  turn  the  onions  to  drain,  covering 
them  with  a  cloth  to  keep  in'  the  steam.  Place  on  a  table  an  old 
cloth,  two  or  three  times  double ;  put  the  onions  on  it  when  quite 
hot,  and  over  them  an  old  piece  of  blanket;  cover  this  closely  over 
them  to  keep  in  the  steam;  let  them  remain  till  the  next  day,  when 
they  will  be  quite  cold,  and  look  yellow  and  shrivelled ;  take  off  the 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


513 


shrivelled  skins,  when  they  should  be  as  white  as  snow.  Put  them  in 
a  pan,  make  a  pickle  of  vinegar  and  the  remainijig  ingredients  ;  boil 
all  these  up,  and  pour  hot  over  the  pan ;  cover  very  closely  to  keep 
in  all  the  steam,  and  let  them  stand  till  the  following  day,  v/hen  they 
will  be  quite  cold.  Put  them  into  jars  and  bottles  well  bunged,  and 
a  tablespoonful  of  the  best  olive-oil  on  the  top  of  each  jar  or  bottle. 
Tie  them  down  with  bladder,  and  let  them  stand  in  a  cool  place  for 
a  month  or  six  weeks,  when  they  will  be  fit  for  use.  They  should  be 
beautifully  white,  and  eat  crisp,  without  the  least  softness,  and  will 
keep  good  many  months. 

Spanish  Onions — Pickled. — Onions,  vinegar;  salt  and  cayenne  to 
taste;  cut  the  onions  in  thin  slices ;  put  a  layer  of  them  in  the  bottom 
of  a  jar ;  sprinkle  with  salt  and  cayenne  ;  then  add  another  layer  of 
onions,  and  season  as  before ;  proceeding  in  this  manner  till  the  jar 
is  full,  pour  in  sufficient  vinegar  to  cover  the  whole,  and  the  pickle 
will  be  fit  for  use  in  a  month. 

Pickled  Plums  (i). — Take  damsons,  wipe  and  prick  them;  place 
them  in  ajar;  to  one  gallon  of  vinegar  put  six  pounds  of  brown  sugar  ; 
dilute  the  vinegar  with  water  if  it  is  too  strong ;  then  pour  it  in  a 
kettle  and  boil  and  skim  it  several  times ;  then  pour  the  vinegar  over 
the  plums. 

Pickled  Plums  (2). — Four  pounds  of. sugar  to  seven  pounds  of 
plums ;  two  ounces  of  stick  cinnamon,  one  of  cloves  ;  scald  the  vine- 
gar and  pour  it  over  the  plums  three  mornings  in  succession. 

East  India  Pickle. — Chop  one  cabbage  fine  (leaving  out  the 
stalks),  and  with  it,  three  or  four  onions,  a  root  of  horseradish,  and  a 
couple  of  green  peppers.  Spice  some  vinegar  very  strong  with  mace, 
cloves,  allspice  and  cinnamon.  Heat  it  scalding  hot ;  add  alum  and 
salt,  and  turn  it  on  to  the  cabbage,  onions  and  pepper,  which  should 
previously  have  all  the  brine  drained  from  them.  Fit  for  use  in  three 
weeks. 

English  Pickles. — Put  the  cucumbers  in  brine  strong  enough  to 
bear  up  a  raw  potato.  Let  them  remain  nine  days  ;  then  pour  off  the 
brine  and  scald  it ;  pour  it  on  again,  scalding  hot ;  cover  closely.     Do 


514  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

this  every  morning  for  three  days ;  then  place  them  in  cold,  fresh 
water,  and  leave  them  over  night;  drain  them,  and  place  in  stone  jars, 
and  put  over  them  scraped  horseradish,  a  handful  of  whole  cloves, 
one  tablespoonful  of  whole  allspice,  a  quart  of  nasturtiums,  a  teacup 
of  mixed  white  mustard-seed,  a  teacup  of  black  mustard-seed,  an 
onion  and  five  or  six  red  peppers  (\yhole).  Scald  the  best  cider  vine- 
gar and  pour  it  over  the  pickles,  covering  them  tightly.  In  a  few 
days  they  are  fit  for  use. 

To  Pickle  Eggs. — Sixteen  eggs,  one  quart  of  vinegar,  half  an 
ounce  of  black  pepper,  half  an  ounce  of  Jamaica  pepper,  half  an  ounce 
of  ginger ;  boil  the  eggs  for  twelve  minutes ;  then  dip  them  into  cold 
water,  and  take  off  the  shells ;  put  the  vinegar,  with  the  pepper  and 
ginger  into  a  stewpan,  and  let  it  simmer  for  ten  minutes;  now  place 
the  eggs  in  a  jar,  pour  over  them  the  vinegar,  etc.,  boiling  hot,  and, 
when  cold,  tie  them  down  with  bladder  to  exclude  the  air.  This 
pickle  will  be  ready  for  use  in  a  month. 

Universal  Pickle. — To  six  quarts  of  vinegar  allow  one  pound  of 
salt,  one-fourth  pound  of  ginger,  one  ounce  of  mace,  one-half  pound 
of  shallots,  one  tablespoonful  of  cayenne,  two  ounces  of  mustard-seed, 
one  and  a-half  ounces  of  turmeric.  Boil  all  the  ingredients  together 
for  about  twenty  minutes  ;  when  cold,  put  them  into  a  jar  with  what- 
€\'er  vegetables  you  choose,  such  as  radish-pods,  French  beans,  cauli- 

m 

flowers,  gherkins,  etc.,  etc.,  as  these  come  into  season ;  put  them  in 
fresh  as  you  gather  them,  having  previously  wiped  them  perfectly 
free  from  moisture  and  grit.  This  pickle  will  be  fit  for  use  in  about 
eight  or  nine  months. 

A  Tennessee  Recipe  for  Tomato  Catsup  (i). — Take  two  quarts 
of  skinned  tomatoes,  two  tablespoonfuls  of  salt,  two  of  black  pepper, 
two  of  ground  mustard,  one  of  spice,  and  four  pods  of  pepper;  mix 
and  rub  these  well  together,  and  stew  them  slowly  in  one  pint  of 
strong  vinegar  three  hours  ;  strain  through  a  sieve,  and  simmer  down 
the  liquid  to  one  quart.     Put  this  in  a  bottle  and  cork  tightly. 

Tomato  Catsup  (2). — One  and  one-half  gallons  of  tomatoes,  eight 
tablespoonfuls  of  mustard-seed,  bruised,  four  tablespoonfuls  of  black 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  515 

pepper,  four  tablespoonfuls  of  salt,  one-half  tablespoonful  of  ground 
allspice,  one-half  tablespoonful  of  cayenne  pepper;  boil  it  four  hours, 
putting  in  a  little  at  a  time  of  sharp  vinegar,  so  as  to  have  at  the  end 
of  four  hours  one-half  gallon  of  catsup;  pass  it  through  a  coarse  sieve 
to  strain  out  all  but  the  rich  pulp  and  spice. 

Tomato  Catsup  (3) — {Mrs.  Reynolds'  recipe). — The  tomatoes 
should  be  perfectly  ripe  and  sound ;  scald  and  peel  them ;  to  one 
grillon  of  tomatoes  add  one  quart  of  sharp  vinegar,  four  tablespoonfuls 
of  fine  salt,  four  of  black  pepper,  one  of  allspice,  whole,  three  of  mus- 
tard and  eight  pods  of  red  pepper ;  the  whole  to  be  boiled  three  or 
four  hours  in  a  brass  kettle,  stirring  frequently ;  when  cold,  rub 
through  a  wire  sieve  fine  enough  to  catch  the  seeds.  Bottle  it.  If  a 
white  scum  rises  in  the  necks  of  the  bottles  in  a  week  or  two,  boil  it 
a  second  time,  and  add  a  little  vinegar.     Seal  the  bottles. 

Tomato  Catsup  (4). — One  gallon  of  ripe  tomatoes  with  one  quart 
of  cider  vinegar ;  boil  until  quite  soft ;  then  strain  through  a  coarse 
iron  sieve;  add  four  tablespoonfuls  of  salt,  two  of  cloves,  four  (heap- 
ing full)  of  allspice,  one  of  red  pepper;  boil  until  half  wasted;  then, 
with  a  skimmer,  take  out  the  spices  and  bottle  tight  when  cold ;  boil 
always  in  tin.  If  the  corks  are  soaked  in  boiling  water  they  will  cork 
easier. 

Cucumber  Catsup. — Grate  large  cucumbers  before  they  begin  to 
turn  yellow;  drain  out  the  juice,  and  put  the  pulp  through  a  sieve  to 
remove  the  large  seeds  ;  fill  a  bottle  half  full  of  the  pulp,  discarding 
the  juice,  and  add  the  same  quantity  of  ten  per  cent,  vinegar;  cork 
tightly ;  when  used,  add  pepper  and  salt ;  salt  kills  the  vinegar  if  put 
in  when  made.  This  is  almost  like  fresh-sliced  cucumber  when 
opened  for  use. 

Walnut  Catsup. — One  hundred  walnuts,  one  handful  of  salt,  one 
quart  of  vinegar,  one-quarter  of  an  ounce  of  mace,  one-quarter  of  an 
ounce  of  cloves,  one-quarter  of  an  ounce  of  ginger,  one-quarter  of  an 
ounce  of  whole  black  pepper,  a  small  piece  of  horseradish,  twenty 
shallots,  one-quarter  of  a  pound  of  anchovies,  one  pint  of  port  wine  ; 
procure  the  walnuts  at  a  time  when  you  can  run  a  pin  through  them; 


5i6  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

slightly  bruise,  and  put  them  into  ajar  with  the  salt  and  vinegar;  let 
them  stand  eight  days,  stirring  every  day ;  then  drain  the  liquor  from 
them  and  boil  it,  with  the  above  ingredients,  for  about  half  an  hour ; 
it  may  be  strained  or  not,  as  preferred,  and,  if  required,  a  little  more 
vinegar  or  wine  can  be  added,  according  to  taste.  When  bottled 
well,  seal  the  corks. 

To  Make  Curry  Powder. — One  ounce  each  of  ground  ginger 
mustard  and  pepper;  three  of  ground  coriander  seed,  the  same  of 
turmeric,  and  half  an  ounce  cardamon  seeds,  also  ground,  one-quarter 
ounce  cayenne  pepper,  one-quarter  ounce  cinnamon,  the  same  of 
cinnamon  seed.  If  not  all  ground,  pound  all  fine  in  a  mortar,  soft, 
and  cork  tightly  in  bottles.  All  these  ingredients  may  readily  be 
found  at  the  druggists  and  grocers.  The  cost  is  less  than  of  the 
curry  powder  which  is  to  be  bought  "ready  made."  It  is  far  superior 
in  quality  and  little  trouble  to  make. 

BREADS.  BREAKFAST  CAKES,  Etc. 

The  first  thing  required  for  making  wholesome  bread  is  the  utmost 
cleanliness ;  the  next  is  the  soundness  and  sweetness  of  all  the 
ingredients  used  for  it ;  and,  in  addition  to  these,  there  must  be  atten- 
tion and  care  through  the  whole  process. 

An  almost  certain  way  of  spoiling  dough  is  to  leave  it  half  made 
and  to  allow  it  to  become  cold  before  it  is  finished.  The  other  most 
common  causes  of  failure  are  using  yeast  which  is  no  longer  sweet, 
or  which  has  been  frozen,  or  has  had  hot  liquid  poured  over  it. 

Too  small  a  proportion  of  yeast  or  insufficient  time  allowed  for  the 
dough  to  rise,  will  cause  the  bread  to  be  heavy. 

Heavy  bread  will  also  most  likely  be  the  result  of  making  the 
dough  very  hard  and  letting  it  become  quite  cold,  particularly  in 
winter. 

If  either  the  sponge  or  the  dough  be  permitted  to  overwork  itself 
— that  is  to  say,  if  the  mixing  and  kneading  be  neglected  when  it 
has  reached  the  proper  point  for  either — sour  bread  will  probably  be 
the  consequence  in  warm  weather,  and  bad  bread  in  any.     The  good- 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  517 

ness  will  also  be  endangered  by  placing  it  so  near  a  fire  as  to  make 
any  part  of  it  hot,  instead  of  maintaining  the  gentle  and  equal  degree 
of  heat  required  for  its  due  fermentation. 

To  keep  bread  sweet  and  fresh,  as  soon  as  it  is  cold  it  should  be 
put  into  a  clean  earthen  pot,  with  a  cover  to  it ;  this  pot  should  be 
placed  at  a  little  distance  from  the  ground,  to  allow  a  current  of  air 
to  pass  underneath. 

Some  persons  prefer  keeping  bread  on  clean  wooden  shelves,  with- 
out being  covered,  that  the  crust  may  not  soften.  Stale  bread  may 
be  freshened  by  warming  it  through  in  a  gentle  oven.  Stale  pastry, 
cakes,  etc.,  may  also  be  improved  by  this  method. 

The  utensils  required  for  making  bread,  on  a  moderate  scale,  are  a 
kneading-trough  or  pan,  sufficiently  large  that  the  dough  may  be 
kneaded  freely  without  throwing  the  flour  over  the  edges,  and  also  to 
allow  for  its  rising ;  a  hair-sieve  for  straining  yeast,  and  one  or  two 
strong  spoons. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  oven  for  baking  bread  should  be  rather 
quick,  and  the  heat  so  regulated  as  to  penetrate  the  dough  without 
hardening  the  outside.  The  oven-door  should  not  be  opened  after 
the  bread  is  put  in  until  the  dough  is  set,  or  has  become  firm,  as  the 
cool  air  admitted  will  have  an  unfavorable  effect  on  it. 

Mixed  Breads. — Rye  bread  is  hard  of  digestion,  and  requires 
longer  and  slower  baking  than  wheaten  bread.  It  is  better  when 
made  with  a  leaven  of  wheaten  flour  rather  than  yeast,  and  turns  out 
lighter.  It  should  not  be  eaten  till  two  days  old.  It  will  keep  a 
long  time. 

ToPSY  Bread  (a  Gevjnan  dish). — One  quaft  of  milk,  mixed  with 
two  tablespoonfuls  of  flour  and  three  or  four  eggs,  small  quantity  of 
salt,  stale  baker's  bread  cut  in  slices;  dip  the  bread  in  the  batter  .and  ^ 
soak  it;  then  take  it  out  and  fry  it  on  a  hot  griddle  with  a  very  little 
lard ;  turn  it  over  and  brown  both  sides  alike ;  eat  with  powdered 
sugar  sprinkled  over  it. 

Brown  Bread  (i). — Three  cups  of  corn-meal,  two  cups  of  rye 
flour,  one  teaspoonful  of  salt,  one  tablespoonful  of  molasses;  stir  with 
new  milk.     Bake  three  hours. 


5i8  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

Brown  Bread  (2). — Two  cups  of  corn-meal,  one  of  wheat  flour, 
one  of  molasses,  one  teaspoonful  of  soda.  Mix  with  either  sweet  or 
sour  milk  ;  stir  it  as  stiff  as  wheat  griddle-cakes.  Put  it  in  some  cov- 
ered vessel  and  boil  in  kettles  of  hot  water  four  hours  at  least.  It  is 
better  boiled  longer. 

Graham  Flour. — The  miller  in  preparing  fine  flour  extracts  from 
it  three-fourths  of  its  nutritious  matter,  leaving  only  that  which  is 
found  in  gluten,  or  starch,  and  he  also  takes  from  it  all  the  phosphate 
which  makes  bone,  and  all  the  matter  which  would  regulate  the 
digestive  organs  and  purify  the  blood,  and  leaves  the  pure  wheaten 
flour  in  such  a  condition  that  no  growing  child  should  feed  upon  it. 
Graham  flour  supplies  all  the  needs  of  the  stomach,  and  if  house- 
keepers would  take  pains  to  make  palatable  Graham,  bread,  muffins, 
gruel,  and  the  like,  the  nation  would  not  long  be  what  it  is  called  now 
— one  of  dyspeptics. 

Graham  Br^ad  (i). — Take  equal  parts  of  fine  flour  and  Graham, 
for  two  loaves  of  bread,  and  one  cup  of  good  potato-yeast ;  mix  with 
sweet  milk  or  water  (cold  water  is  preferable  in  summer),  as  stiff  as 
can  be  conveniently  stirred  with  a  spoon ;  butter  the  tins ;  put  in  the 
mixture,  and  set  in  a  warm  place  for  about  three  hours,  and  it  will  be 
light  enough  to  bake.  It  should  be  baked  about  one-third  longer 
than  fine  flour. 

Graham  Bread  (2). — Purchase  your  flour  in  small  quantities,  and 
if  possible  procure  it  at  the  mill  where  it  is  freshly  made,  as  it  does 
not  retain  its  sweetness  as  long  as  fine  flour.  Take  one  quart  of  milk 
and  warm  water,  or  two-thirds  of  milk  and  one-third  of  water ;  stir 
this  into  a  pint  of  wheat  flour,  and  add  enough  Graham. 

Shaker  Bread. — Take  half  the  flour  (unbolted)  you  intend  using, 
and  pour  on  boiling  milk  (be  sure  it  boils),  and  have  it  about  the  con- 
sistency of  batter  that  you  would  have  for  making  pancakes  ;  let  this 
stand  till  cool  enough  to  work,  then  knead  in  the  rest  of  your  flour 
just  sufficiently  stiff  to  mould  on  a  board.  One  hour  in  a  middling 
hot  oven  is  sufficient  for  baking. 

Corn  Bread  ( i). — One  cup  of  hominy ;  boil  it  and  stir  in  some  Indian 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


519 


meal ;  add  a  teacup  of  milk,  one  egg,  a  piece  of  butter  half  as  large 
as  an  egg;  then  make  it  as  thick  as  pound-cake  with  Indian  meal. 
Then  comes  the  secret :  bake  it  quick  to  a  light-brown  color. 

Corn  Bread  (2). — Two  cups  of  Indian  meal,  one  cup  of  flour,  two 
cups  of  sour  milk,  and  two  small  teaspoonfuls  of  saleratus ;  one-half 
cup  of  brown  sugar. 

Corn  Bread  (3). — One  pint  of  buttermilk  ;  one  pint  of  corn-meal; 
half  a  pint  of  flour;  one-third  cup  of  molasses;  two  teaspoonfuls  of 
soda ;  salt.  Bake  one  hour  and  a-quarter  if  the  oven  is  right.  Cut 
it  with  a  sharp  knife. 

Corn  Bread  (4). — Two  cups  of  flour,  one  of  meal,  two  eggs,  a 
little  molasses  and  a  little  salt.  Mix  it  with  sour  milk  a  little  softer 
than  pound-cake;  add  a  teaspoonful  of  saleratus. 

Self-Raising  Bread. — Put  three  teacups  of  water — as  warm  as 
you  can  bear  your  finger  in — in  a  two-quart  cup  or  bowl,  and  three- 
quarters  of  a  teaspoonful  of  salt ;  stir  in  flour  enough  to  make  quite 
a  stiff  batter.  This  is  for  the  rising.  Set  the  bowl,  closely  covered, 
in  a  kettle  in  warm  water — as  warm  as  you  can  bear  your  finger  in — 
and  keep  it  as  near  this  temperature  as  possible.  Notice  the  time 
you  set  your  rising.  In  three  hours  stir  in  two  tablespoonfuls  of 
flour;  put  it  back,  and  in  five  and  one-half  hours  from  the  time  of 
setting  it  will  be  within  one  inch  of  the  iop  of  }'our  bowl.  It  is  then 
light  enough,  and  will  make  up  eight  quarts  of  flour.  Make  a  sponge 
in  the  centre  of  your  flour  with  one  quart  of  the  same  temperature  as 
rising;  stir  the  rising  into  it,  cover  with  a  little  dry  flour,  and  put  it 
where  it  will  keep  very  warm  and  not  scald.  In  three-quarters  of  an 
hour  wring  this  into  stiff  dough.  If  water  is  used  be  sure  it  is  very 
warm,  and  do  not  work  as  much  as  yeast  bread.  Make  the  loaves  a 
little  larger,  and  keep  it  warm  for  another  three-quarters  of  an  hour. 
It  will  then  be  ready  to  bake.  While  rising  this  last  time  have  your 
oven  heating.     It  needs  a  hotter  oven  than  yeast  bread. 

Egg  Corn  Bread  {Afrs.  Patterson's  recipe). — One  quart  of  sour 
milk,  two  teaspoonfuls  of  soda,  one  of  salt,  two  eggs.  Now  stir  in 
your  meal  to  make  the  batter,  not  too  thick.     Add  last  two  or  three 


520  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

tablespoonfuls  of  melted  lard  or  butter,  and  stir  not  a  moment 
longer  than  to  mix  it.  Pour  in  your  pans,  or  gem-pans  as  you  pre- 
fer, for  bakincf.  Bread  or  batter  made  with  soda  should  not  be 
kneaded  or  stirred  any  longer  than  just  to  mix  it,  and  always 
bake  quickly.  I  have  seen  cooks  who  stir  their  batter  every  time 
they  take  out  any.     This  is  perfectly  ruinous  to  good,  crisp  cakes. 

Wheat  Bread. — Boil  or  bake  three  potatoes  and  mash  fine. 
Soak  a  yeast-cake  and  add  to  the  potatoes  when  cool  enough.  Add 
two  teaspoonfuls  of  salt;  let  it  stand  three  or  four  hours;  then  add 
water  enough  for  two  loaves  of  bread.  Stir  in  flour  until  very  stiff; 
let  it  stand  over  night.  In  the  morning  add  half  a  teaspoonful  of 
soda  dissolved  in  water,  and  butter  the  size  of  a  walnut.  Knead 
thoroughly,  and  then  let  it  raise  very  light,  and  put  in  bread-pans 
without  further  kneading.  Let  it  raise  quickly  to  twice  its  bulk 
when  put  in  the  pans. 

French  Bread. — Take  clean  rice,  three-fourths  of  a  pound ;  tie  it 
up  in  a  thick  linen  bag,  giving  it  room  to  swell ;  boil  from  three  to 
four  hours,  till  it  becomes  a  perfect  paste ;  mix,  while  warm,  with 
seven  pounds  of  flour,  adding  yeast,  salt  and  water;  allow  the  dough 
to  work  a  proper  time  near  the  fire ;  then  divide  it  into  loaves ;  dust 
them  in  and  knead  vigorously.  This  quantity  will  make  thirteen 
pounds  and  seven  ounces  of  excellent  bread. 

Excellent  Rolls. — To  every  pound  of  flour  allow  one  ounce  of 
butter,  one-quarter  of  a  pint  of  milk,  one  large  teaspoonful  of  yeast,  a 
little  salt.  Warm  the  butter  in  the  milk,  add  to  it  the  yeast  and  salt, 
and  mix  these  ingredients  well  together;  put  the  flour  into  a  pan,  stir 
in  the  above  ingredients,  and  let  the  dough  raise,  covered  in  a  warm 
place.  Knead  it  well,  make  it  into  rolls,  let  them  raise  again  for  a  few 
minutes,  and  bake  in  a  quick  oven.  Richer  rolls  may  be  made  by 
adding  one  or  two  eggs,  and  a  larger  proportion  of  butter,  and  their 
appearance  improved  by  brushing  the  tops  over  with  the  yolk  of  an 
egg  or  a  little  milk. 

Buns. — At  night  take  three  cups  of  warm  milk,  one  cup  of  sugar, 
one-half  a  cup  of  good  yeast;  make  a  batter;  then  let  it  stand  over 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  5 21 

night;  in  the  morning  it  should  be  very  light;  then  add  one  cup  of 
sugar  and  one  cup  of  butter;  mould  it  well,  and  let  it  raise  again ;  when 
well  risen,  cut  in  small  pieces,  and  roll  them  in  the  hand ;  put  them 
on  tins  just  to  touch  ;  let  them  raise  again,  and  rub  over  the  top  with 
the  white  of  an  egg,  and  bake  a  light-brown.  This  quantity  will  make 
sixty  buns ;  currants  or  chopped  raisins  improve  them. 

Dough  Cakes. — One  pint  of  light  dough,  three  eggs,  two  cups 
of  sugar,  one  cup  of  butter,  cinnamon  and  nutmeg,  with  two  pounds 
of  raisins.     Add  a  coffee-cup  of  flour. 

Soda  Biscuit. — One  pint  of  milk,  two  teaspoonfuls  of  soda,  two 
teaspoonfuls  of  cream  of  tartar:  butter  half  the  size  of  an  egg,  or 
lard,  if  butter  is  not  at  hand;  rub  the  cream  of  tartar  in  the  flour; 
dissolve  the  soda  in  the  milk ;  flour  enough  to  roll.  Bake  in  a  quick 
6ven. 

Plain  Soda  Biscuit. — One  quart  of  flour,  one  teaspoonful  of  soda, 
two  teaspoonfuls  of  cream  of  tartar,  one-half  a  teaspoonful  of  salt,  a 
lump  of  butter  the  size  of  an  egg;  mix  into  a  soft  dough ;  roll  out 
and  bake  qyickly — the  quicker  the  better. 

Crisp  Soda  Biscuit. — Sift  flour  into  pans  ready  to  receive  the  in- 
gfedients.  One  pint  of  sour  milk,  one  teaspoonful  of  soda,  one  of 
salt;  mix  this  well  into  the  flour;  pour  in  the  milk.  Now  measure 
six  tablespoonfuls  of  melted  lard ;  mix  up  quickly  into  good  knead- 
ing dough.;  roll  out  half  an  inch  thick  and  cut  out  your  biscuits; 
bake  quickly.  If  they  get  soft  after  they  are  taken  from  the  oven, 
bake  longer  the  next  time.  Half  the  quantity  of  lard  will  do  for 
those  who  do  not  like  them  so  crisp. 

Biscuits  (i). — Take  some  bread -dough,  add  some  shortening,  some 
Avcet  milk,  and  a  teaspoonful  of  saleratus ;  let  them  stand  to  raise. 

Biscuits  (2). — Three  cups  of  milk,  or  milk  and  water,  one  cup  of 
butter  or  lard,  one  egg,  two  tablespoonfuls  of  yeast.  Mix  it  not 
very  stiff,  and  let  it  stand  six  or  eight  hours  to  raise. 

Biscuits  (3). — One  pound  of  flour,  the  yolk  of  one  egg ;  milk. 
Mix  the  flour  and  the  yolk  of  the  egg  with  sufficient  milk  to  make 
the  whole  into  a  very  stiff  paste ;  beat  it  well,  and  knead  it  until  it  is 


522  THE    hearthstone;     OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME. 

perfectly  smooth.     Roll  the  paste  out  very  thin,  cut  out  the  biscuits,, 
and  bake  in  a  slow  oven  twelve  or  eighteen  minutes. 

Hard  or  Water-biscuit. — Sift  flour  into  a  pan  for  one  pint  of 
cold  water;  one  teaspoonful  of  salt  stirred  in  flour;  half  a  pint  of 
cold  lard  rubbed  in  the  flour ;  now  pour  your  water  into  it,  making 
quite  a  stiff  dough.  Knead  it  well,  then  roll  out  several  times  and 
double  it  over  like  pastry ;  when  it  becomes  very  smooth  make  out 
the  biscuit  with  your  hand,  then  roll  till  about  half  an  inch  thick ; 
prick  them  well  with  a  fork  through,  so  that  they  will  not  blister. 
Do  not  bake  as  fast  as  soda-bread,  and  bake  much  longer. 

Crisp  Biscuits. — Two  pounds  of  flour,  the  yolks  of  two  eggs,  milk. 
Mix  the  flour  and  the  yolks  of  the  eggs  with  sufficient  milk  to  make 
the  whole  into  a  very  stiff  paste;  beat  it  well  and  knead  it  until  it  is 
perfectly  smooth.  Roll  the  paste  out  very  thin;  with  a  round  cutter 
shape  it  into  small  biscuits,  and  bake  them  a  nice  brown  in  a  slow 
oven  from  twenty  to  thirty-five  minutes. 

Dessert  Biscuits,  which  may  be  flavored  with  ground  ginger, 
cinnamon,  etc.  One  pound  of  flour,  one-half  pound  of  butter,  one- 
half  pound  of  sifted  sugar,  the  yolks  of  six  eggs,  flavoring  to  taste. 
Put  the  butter  into  a  basin ;  warm  it,  but  do  not  allow  it  to  boil ;  then 
with  the  hand  beat  it  to  cream.  Add  the  flour  by  degrees,  then  the 
sugar  and  flavoring,  and  moisten  the  whole  with  the  yolks  of  the 
eggs,  which  should  be  previously  well  beaten.  When  all  the  ingre- 
dients' are  thoroughly  incorporated,  drop  the  mixture  from  a  spoon 
on  to  a  buttered  paper,  leaving  a  distance  between  each  cake,  as  they 
spread  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  get  warm.  Bake  in  rather  a  slow 
oven  from  twelve  to  eighteen  minutes,  and  do  not  let  the  biscuits 
acquire  too  much  color.  In  making  the  above  quantity,  half  may  be 
flavored  with  ground  ginger,  and  the  other  half  with  essence  of  lemon 
or  currants,  to  make  a  variety.  With  whatever  the  preparation  is 
flavored,  so  are  the  biscuits  called;  and  an  endless  variety  may  be 
made  in  this  manner. 

Plain    Johnny-cake. — Wet    corn-meal  with   either   hot    or  cold 
water;  pack  it  one  inch  thick  in  a  baking-pan  and  bake  it  in  a  hot. 
oven. 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


523 


Strawberry  Short-cake. — Make  a  crust  same  as  for  nice  biscuit, 
only  a  little  richer ;  roll  out  a  crust  three-quarters  or  one  inch  thick ; 
then  spread  on  one  side  with  butter ;  then  prepare  another  crust  pre- 
cisely like  the  first  one ;  lay  the  two  buttered  sides  together  and 
bake  in  a  long  tin-pan ;  when  done  the  butter  will  cause  the  crusts  to 
separate  easily ;  have  your  berries  mashed  a  little  and  sweetened  to 
your  taste ;  put  the  berries  on  the  under  crust  and  lay  the  other  on 
top  of  first  one;  a  little  nice  cream  will  not  spoil  it  much. 

Southern  Hoe-cake. — Sift  a  tin-pan  half-full  of  Indian  meal  ; 
throw  in  a  teaspoonful  of  salt ;  pour  boiling  water  on  the  meal — a 
little  at  a  time,  stirring  it  well  with  a  spoon  as  you  proceed,  until 
you  have  a  stiff  dough.  It  must  be  thoroughly  mixed  and  well 
stirred.  Flatten  your  dough  into  cakes  about  the  size  of  a  saucer, 
and  then  bake  on  the  griddle.  The  griddle  should  be  well  heated 
when  they  are  put  on,  so  that  they  will  brown  nicely ;  when  one  side 
is  done,  turn  them  with  a  knife.  They  must  be  baked  brown  on 
both  sides,  and  should  be  about  half  an  inch  thick.  This  is  a  favorite 
Southern  cake. 

Corn  Cakes  izvithoiit  eggs,  milk  or  yeast). — Sift  three  pints  of  corn 
meal,  add  one  teaspoonful  of  salt,  one  tablespoonful  of  lard,  one  tea- 
spoonful  of  dissolved  soda.  Make  it  into  a  soft  dough  with  one  pint 
of  cold  water,  then  thin  it  gradually  by  adding  not  quite  one  and  a 
half  pints  of  warm  water;  when  it  is  all  mixed,  beat  or  stir  it  well  for 
half  an  hour,  then  bake  on  a  griddle  and  serve  hot. 

Economy  Cakes. — Bread  which  is  old  and  sour  can  be  made  into 
nice  cakes.  It  should  be  cut  into  small  pieces,  and  soaked  in  cold 
water  until  very  soft;  then  drain  off  the  water  and  mash  the  bread 
fine.  To  three  pints  of  the  bread-pulp  put  a  couple  of  beaten  eggs, 
three  or  four  tablespoonfuls  of  flour,  and  a  little  salt;  dissolve  a  tea- 
spoonful of  saleratus  in  a  teacup  of  milk;  strain  it;  then  stir  it  into 
the  bread;  add  more  milk  till  it  is  of  the  right  consistency  to  fry;  the 
batter  should  be  rather  thicker  than  that  of  buckwheat  cakes,  and 
cooked  in  the  same  manner. 

Nice  Breakfast  Cakes. — One  pound  of  flour,  half  a  teaspoonful 


524  THE  hearthstone;    or,  life  at  home. 

of  tartaric  acid,  half  a  teaspoonful  of  salt,  half  a  teaspoonful  of  car- 
bonate of  soda,  one  and  a  half  breakfast-cupful  of  milk,  one  ounce  of 
sifted  loaf-sugar,  two  eggs.  These  cakes  are  made  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  the  soda  bread,  with  the  addition  of  eggs  and  sugar;  mix  the 
flour,  tartaric  acid,  and  salt  well  together,  taking  care  that  the  two 
latter  ingredients  are  reduced  to  the  finest  powder,  and  stir  in  the 
sifted  sugar,  which  should  also  be  very  fine;  dissolve  the  soda  in 
the  milk ;  add  the  eggs,  which  should  be  well  whisked,  and,  with  this 
liquid,  work  the  flour,  etc.,  into  a  light  dough;  divide  it  into  small 
cakes;  put  them  into  the  oven  immediately,  and  bake  about  twenty 
minutes. 

Rice  or  Hominy  Griddle  Cakes. — To  one  quart  of  sweet  milk 
put  two  cups  of  boiled  rice  or  hominy,  two  egg's  beaten  a  little; 
throw  in  a  sprinkling  of  salt,  and  thicken  with  wheat-flour.  Half  a 
teaspoonful  of  soda  dissolved.  If  the  rice  be  cold,  warm  the  milk 
and  rub  the  rice  into  it  before  putting  the  flour  in. 

Bread-Cake. — Four  eggs,  three  cups  of  dough  after  it  is  raised ; 
two  cups  of  sugar,  one  cup  of  butter;  a  very  little  soda  dissolved  in 
water  and  flavored  with  nutmeg.  Put  raisins  or  currants  in  if  you 
wish. 

Batter  Cakes. — Mix  the  batter,  either  rye  and  Indian  meal  or 
wheat  and  Indian  meal — half  of  each,  one  teaspoonful  of  soda,  and 
one  of  saleratus  dissolved  in  water,  then  a  spoonful  of  tartaric  acid  in 
a  cup  of  water,  and  a  little  salt. 

Soft  Waffles. — One  pound  of  flour,  four  eggs,  one  quart  of 
milk,  one-quarter  of  a  pound  of  butter,  two  spoonfuls  of  yeast ;  warm 
the  milk  and  butter  together;  mix  them  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning 
for  tea. 

Graham  Muffins. — Take  three  pints  of  lukewarm  milk,  half  a  tea- 
cup of  home-made  hop-yeast,  three  tablespoonfuls  of  sugar,  one  tea- 
spoonful of  salt;  stir  it  into  three  pints  of  Graham  flour  and  one  pint 
of  barrel  flour.  Set  it  in  a  warm  place  to  raise  over  night,  and  next 
aiorning  pour  it  into  "gem"  pans  or  muffin-rings,  and  bake  in  a  very 
};ot  oven. 


COOKERY   RECIPES.  525 

Muffins  (i). — One  quart  of  milk,  warm,  two  eggs,  flour  to  make  a 
batter,  half  a  teacup  of  yeast,  and  a  little  salt. 

Muffins  (2). — One  pint  of  sweet  milk,  one  pint  of  cream,  one  tea- 
spoonful  of  cream  of  tartar,  one  teaspoonful  and  a-half  of  soda,  stirred 
pretty  thick  with  flour. 

Indian  Muffins. — One  cup  of  sour  milk,  one  egg,  about  a  half- 
tablespoonful  of  melted  butter ;  one-third  as  much  flour  as  meal. 
Stir  pretty  thick ;  bake  in  a  quick  oven,  or  on  the  griddle  in  rings. 

White  Flour  Gems. — One  quart  of  sweet  milk,  one  teaspoonful 
of  tartar,  one-half  teaspoonful  of  soda,  three  eggs.  Add  flour  to  make 
a  thick  batter;  beat  well,  put  in  gem-pans,  and  bake  in  a  quick  oven. 
Beat  the  eggs  first. 

Dr.  Trall's  Recipe  for  Gems. — Stir  into  the  coldest  water  any 
kind  of  meal,  and  mix  to  a  stiff  batter,  yet  so  that  it  may  lift  with  a 
spoon  and  settle  smooth  of  itself.  Drop  immediately  into  hot  gem- 
pans  (iron  are  best) ;  let  them  stand  on  the  top  of  the  stove  a  few 
minutes,  then  bake  in  a  hot  oven  thirty  or  forty  minutes.  When 
done,  they  should  be  light  and  dry  when  broken.  If  mushy  on  the 
inside,  the  batter  was  not  thick  enough.  If  the  gem-pans  are  hot  and 
kept  smooth,  no  greasing  is  necessary. 

Toast  without  Butter. — Thicken  milk  with  flour,  and  stir  in  a 
well-beaten  egg ;  mix  well  before  putting  in  the  toasted  bread  ;  it  is 
better  than  butter. 

Crackers. — Three  pounds  of  flour,  one-quarter  of  a  pound  of 
butter ;  rub  them  well  together  ;  then  add  a  little  water,  scarcely 
enough  to  wet  it  at  all ;  then  work  it  until  it  is  soft,  and  will  break 
like  putty ;  they  are  best  baked  in  a  brick  oven. 

To  Make  Pancakes. — Eggs,  flour,  milk;  to  every  egg  allow  one 
ounce  of  flour,  about  one  gill  of  milk,  one-eighth  of  a  saltspoonful 
of  salt.  Ascertain  that  the  eggs  are  fresh;  break  each  one  separately 
in  a  cup;  whisk  them  well,  put  them  into  a  basin,  with  the  flour,  salt, 
and  a  few  drops  of  milk,  and  beat  the  whole  to  a  perfectly  smooth 
batter;  then  add  by  degrees  the  remainder  of  the  milk.  The  pro- 
portion of  this  latter  ingredient  must  be  regulated  by  the  size  of  the 
33 


526  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

eggs,  etc. ;  but  the  batter,  when  ready  for  frying,  should  be  of  the 
consistency  of  thick  cream.  Place  a  small  frying-pan  on  the  fire  to 
get  hot;  let  it  be  delicately  clean,  or  the  pancakes  will  stick,  and 
when  quite  hot,  put  into  it  a  small  piece  of  butter,  allowing  about 
half  an  ounce  to  each  pancake.  When  it  is  melted,  pour  in  the  bat- 
ter, about  half  a  teacupful  to  a  pan  five  inches  in  diameter,  and  fry  it 
for  about  four  minutes,  or  until  it  is  nicely  brown  on  one  side. 
By  only  pouring  in  a  small  quantity  of  batter,  and  so  making  the 
pancakes  thin,  the  necessity  of  turning  them — an  operation  rather 
difficult  to  unskilful  cooks — is  obviated.  When  the  pancake  is  done, 
sprinkle  over  it  some  powdered  sugar,  roll  it  up  in  the  pan,  and  take 
it  out  with  a  large  slice,  and  place  it  on  a  dish  before  the  fire.  Pro- 
ceed in  this  manner  until  sufficient  are  cooked  for  a  dish ;  then  send 
them  quickly  to  table,  and  continue  to  send  in  a  further  quantity,  as 
pancakes  are  never  good  unless  eaten  almost  immediately  they  come 
from  the  frying-pan.  The  batter  may  be  flavored  with  a  little  grated 
lemon-rind,  or  the  pancakes  may  have  preserve  rolled  in  them  instead 
of  sugar.  Send  sifted  sugar  and  a  cut  lemon  to  table  with  them. 
To  render  the  pancakes  very  light,  the  yolks  and  whites  of  the  eggs 
should  be  beaten  separately,  and  the  whites  added  the  last  thing  to 
the  batter  before  frying. 

Pancakes. — Make  a  good  batter  in  the  usual  way,  with  eggs,  milk 
and  flour;  pour  this  into  a  pan,  so  that  it  lies  very  thin;  let  your 
lard,  or  whatever  else  you  fry  them  in,  be  quite  hot.  When  one 
side  is  done,  toss  it  up  lightly  to  trim  it ;  serve  with  lemon  and 
sugar. 

Rice  Croquettes. — Half  a  pound  of  rice,  one  quart  of  milk,  six 
ounces  of  pounded  sugar,  flavoring  of  vanilla,  lemon-peel,  or  bitter 
almonds,  egg  and  bread-crumbs,  hot  lard.  Put  the  rice,  milk  and 
sugar  into  a  sauce-pan,  and  let  the  former  gradually  swell  over  a 
gentle  fire  until  all  the  milk  is  dried  up;  and  just  before  the  rice  is 
done,  stir  in  a  few  drops  of  essence  of  any  of  the  above  flavorings. 
Let  the  rice  get  cold;  then  form  it  into  small  round  balls,  dip  them 
into  yolk  of  egg,  sprinkle  them  with  bread-crumbs,  and  fry  them  in 


COOKERY    RFXIPES.  52/ 

boiling  lard  for  about  ten  minutes,  turning  them  about  that  they  may 
get  equally  browned.  Drain  the  greasy  moisture  from  them,  by 
placing  them  on  a  cloth  in  front  of  the  fire  for  a  minute  or  two;  pile 
them  on  a  white  doyley,  and  send  them  quickly  to  table.  A  small 
piece  of  jam  is  sometimes  introduced  into  the  middle  of  each  cro- 
quette, which  adds  very  much  to  the  flavor  of  this  favorite  dish. 

Rice  Fritters. — Six  ounces  of  rice,  one  quart  of  milk,  three 
ounces  of  sugar,  one  ounce  of  fresh  butter,  six  ounces  of  orange  mar- 
malade, four  eggs.  Swell  the  rice  in  the  milk,  with  the  sugar  and 
butter,  over  a  slow  fire  until  it  is  perfectly  tender,  which  will  be  in 
about  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  When  the  rice  is  done,  strain  away 
the  milk,  should  there  be  any  left,  and  mix  with  it  the  marmalade 
and  well-beaten  eggs;  stir  the  whole  over  the  fire  until  the  eggs  arc 
set;  then  spread  the  mixture  on  a  dish  to  the  thickness  of  about  one- 
half  inch,  or  rather  thicker.  When  it  is  perfectly  cold,  cut  it  into 
long  strips,  dip  them  in  a  batter  the  same  as  for  apple-fritters,  and  fry 
them  a  nice  brown.  Dish  them  on  a  white  doyley,  strew  sifted  sugar 
over,  and  serve  quickly. 

Squash  Fritters. — One  pint  cooked  and  well-mashed  squash,  one 
pint  of  milk,  two  eggs  and  a  little  salt ;  add  flour  to  make  the  batter 
stiff  enough  to  turn  on  the  griddle,  and  not  too  thick.  The  addition 
of  a  teaspoonful  of  baking-powder  will  tend  to  make  them  lighter; 
bake  on  a  griddle  as  pour-cakes.  This  is  a  delicious  dish.  The 
surplus  squash  of  a  dinner  can  thus  be  economically  used  for  break- 
fast. 

Corn  Fritters. — These,  though  made  in  this  case  from  canned 
corn,  will  be  found  almost  as  good  as  those  from  the  fresh.  Drain 
off  the  liquor  from  a  can  of  corn  and  chop  the  grains  very  fine  in  a 
chopping-tray.  Add  to  this  paste  one  cup  of  milk,  a  heaping  table- 
spoonful  of  sugar  and  one  of  melted  butter,  one  teaspoonful  of  salt 
and  a  saltspoonful  of  pepper,  and  two  tablespoonfuls  of  flour.  13cat 
very  thoroughly  and  fry  by  the  spoonful  on  a  griddle,  or  they  can  be 
dropped  into  boiling  lard  and  drained. 

Mush. — Mush  cannot  be  cooked  in  less  than  one  hour,  and  it  i.s 


528  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

better  to  be  cooked  four  hours ;  stir  the  meal  slowly  into  boiling 
water,  so  as  to  have  no  lumps,  and  keep  stirring  as  long  as  the  pud- 
ding-stick can  be  moved ;  then  let  it  boil  as  long  as  it  will  blubber 
up,  stirring  it  frequently ;  then  set  it  off  the  fire,  and  let  it  simmer  by 
the  hour.  If  mush  is  to  be  had  for  supper,  it  is  best  to  make  it  while 
the  range  is  hot  with  the  dinner  cooking.  This  will  save  fire  and 
improve  the  mush. 

Potato  Yeast. — Boil  six  good-sized  potatoes,  in  two  quarts  of 
water,  till  done ;  then  take  four  tablespoonfuls  of  flour  and  two  of 
sugar,  and  work  them  together  with  the  potatoes  and  a  little  of  the 
water  until  perfectly  smooth,  taking  care  to  keep  the  remainder  of 
the  water  on  the  stove  until  needed ;  when  sufficiently  mashed,  add 
the  rest  of  the  water,  and,  after  stirring  together,  put  through  a 
colander  to  prevent  any  lumps  in  the  yeast ;  when  about  lukewarm, 
add  a  little  stock  yeast,  and  set  in  a  warm  place  for  about  half  a  day, 
and  it  will  be  sufficiently  raised  to  put  in  cans  or  jars  in  a  cool  place. 

Yeast. — To  one  cup  of  grated  potatoes  pour  one  quart  of  boiling 

water ;  add  one-half  cup  of  sugar  and  one-half  cup  of  salt ;  add,  when 

cooled  to  a  little  more  than  milk-warm,  one  cup  of  yeast.     Put  in  a 

warm  place  to  raise, 

CAKES  AND  ICING. 

A  Few  Hints  Respecting  the  Making  and  Baking  of  Cakes. 
— Eggs  should  always  be  broken  into  a  cup,  the  whites  and  yolks 
separated,  and  they  should  always  be  strained.  Breaking  the  eggs 
thus,  the  bad  ones  may  be  easily  rejected  without  spoiling  the  others, 
and  so  cause  no  waste.  As  eggs  are  used  instead  of  yeast,  they 
should  be  very  thoroughly  whisked ;  they  are  generally  sufficiently 
beaten  when  thick  enough  to  carry  the  drop  that  falls  from  the 
whisk. 

Loaf-sugar  should  be  well  pounded,  and  then  sifted  through  a  fine 
sieve. 

Currants  should  be  nicely  washed,  picked,  dried  in  a  cloth,  and 
then  examined,  that  no  pieces  of  grit  or  stone  may  be  left  amongst 
them.     They  should  then  be  laid  on  a  dish  before  the  fir^,  to  become 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  529 

thoroughly  dry;  as,  if  added  damp  to  the  other  ingredients,  cakes 
will  be  liable  to  be  heavy. 

Good  butter  should  always  be  used  in  the  manufacture  of  cakes; 
and  if  beaten  to  a  cream,  it  saves  much  time  and  labor  to  warm,  but 
not  melt  it  before  baking. 

Less  butter  and  eggs  are  required  for  cakes  when  yeast  is  mixed 
with  the  other  ingredients. 

The  heat  of  the  oven  is  of  great  importance,  especially  for  large 
cakes.  If  the  heat  be  not  tolerably  fierce,  the  batter  will  not  raise.  If 
the  oven  is  too  quick,  and  there  is  any  danger  of  the  cake  burning  or 
catching,  put  a  sheet  of  clean  paper  over  the  top.  Newspaper,  or 
paper  that  has  been  printed  on,  should  never  be  used  for  this  purpose. 

To  know  when  a  cake  is  sufficiently  baked,  plunge  a  clean  knife 
into  the  middle  of  it ;  draw  it  quickly  out,  and  if  it  looks  in  the  least 
sticky,  put  the  cake  back,  and  close  the  oven  door  until  the  cake  is 
done. 

Cakes  should  be  kept  in  closed  tin  canisters  or  jars,,and  in  a  dry 
place.  Those  made  with  yeast  do  not  keep  so  long  as  those  made 
without  it. 

Icing. — Whites  of  four  eggs,  one  pound  of  powdered  white  sugar, 
lemon  or  other  seasoning.  Break  the  whites  into  a  broad,  clean,  cool 
dish.  Throw  a  small  handful  of  sugar  upon  them,  and  begin  whip- 
ping it  in  with  long,  even  strokes  of  the  beater.  A  few  minutes  later 
throw  in  more  sugar,  and  keep  adding  it  at  intervals  until  it  is  all 
used  up.  Beat  with  a  regular  sweeping  motion  of  the  whisk,  until  the 
icing  is  of  a  smooth,  fine  and  firm  texture.  Half  an  hour's  beating 
should  be  sufficient,  if  done  well.  If  not  stiff  enough,  add  more 
sugar.  If  the  seasoning  is  lemon-juice,  allow,  in  measuring  the  sugar, 
for  the  additional  liquid.  Lemon-juice,  or  a  very  little  tartaric  acid, 
whitens  the  icing.  Use  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  sugar  for  each 
egg.  Frosting  made  this  way  hardens  in  one-fourth  the  time  re- 
quired under  the  former  plan,  and  not  more  than  half  the  time  is 
required  in  the  making  of  it.  Pour  the  icing  by  the  spoonful  on  the 
top  of  the  cake,  and  near  the  centre  of  the  surface  to  be  covered.     If 


530  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

the  loaf  is  of  such  a  shape  that  the  hquid  will  settle  of  itself  to  its 
place,  it  is  best  to  do  so.  If  it  is  spread,  use  a  broad-bladed  knife, 
dipped  in  cold  water.  It  is  best  to  dry  it  in  the  sun  where  there  is 
no  dust. 

Frosting  for  Cakes. — Allow  for  the  white  of  one  egg  twelve 
heaping  teaspoonfuls  of  white  powdered  sugar.  Beat  the  whites  of 
eggs  to  a  stiff  froth,  then  stir  in  the  sugar  gradually,  and  continue  the 
stirring  for  ten  or  fifteen  minutes.  Season  with  lemon-juice.  To  frost 
a  common-sized  loaf  of  cake,  allow  the  white  of  one  egg  and  half  of 
another, 

•  Royal  Icing  for  Cakes. — Have  ready  a  pound  of  the  best  white 
sugar,  which  pound  well  and  sift  through  a  silk  sieve;  put  it  into  a 
basin  with  the  whites  of  three  eggs;  beat  well  together  with  a  wooden 
spoon,  adding  the  juice  of  half  a  lemon;  keep  beating  well  until  it 
becomes  very  light  and  hangs  in  flakes  from  the  spoon  ;  if  it  should 
be  rather  too  stiff  in  mixing,  add  a  little  more  white  of  egg;  if,  on  the 
contrary,  too  soft,  a  little  more  sugar;  it  is  then  ready  for  use  when 
required. 

To  Color  Icing  Yellow. — Icing  may  be  colored  yellow  by  put- 
ting the  grated  peel  of  a  lemon  or  orange  in  a  thin  muslin  bag, 
straining  a  little  juice  through  it,  and  squeezing  it  hard  into  the  egg 
and  sugar.  Cranberry  syrup  and  strawberry  juice  color  a  pretty 
pink. 

Mrs.  Reynolds'  Recipe  for  Icing. — Beat  the  whites  of  three 
eggs  to  a  stiff  froth  ;  melt  one  pound  and  a-quarter  of  loaf-sugar,  and, 
while  boiling  hot,  pour  it  over  the  eggs,  stirring  it  until  the  whole  is 
thoroughly  mixed.  Then  add  a  large  spoonful  of  powdered  starch, 
a  spoonful  of  vinegar,  and  flavor  it  with  oil  of  lemon. 

Handsome  and  delicious  frosting  can  be  made  by  using  the  yolks 
of  eggs  instead  of  the  whites.  Proceed  exactly  as  for  ordinary  frost- 
ing. It  will  harden  just  as  nicely  as  that  does.  This  is  particularly 
good  for  orange  cake,  barn^onizing  with  the  color  of  the  cake  in  a 
way  to  delight  the  soul  of  the  aesthetic. 

Sponge   Cake. — The  weight  of  eggs  in  fine  white  sugar,  half  the 


COOKERY    RECIPES. 


531 


weight  of  eggs  in  flour;  beat  whites  and  yolks  separately,  adding  the 
sugar  gradually  to  the  yolks;  now  add  your  whites  after  they  have 
been  beaten,  to  a  stiff  froth.  Last,  your  flour  and  flavoring  beat  in 
very  quickly,  and  not  a  moment  longer  stirring  than  just  to  mix  it. 
Thi.s  is  the  secret  of  .sponge  cake.  A  good,  steady  heat  for  baking — 
not  too  hot,  as  this  spoils  the  lightness. 

Sponge  Cake  [excellent). — One  pound  of  sugar,  one  pound  of  eggs, 
half  a  pound  of  sifted  flour,  juice  of  one  lemon  and  the  grated  rind. 
The  flour  should  be  a  full  half-pound. 

Soda  Sponge  Cake. — One  cup  of  sugar,  one  pound  of  flour,  four 
eggs,  one  and  one-half  teaspoonfuls  of  cream  of  tartar,  three-quarters 
of  a  teaspoonful  of  soda. 

Silver  Cake. — One  pound  of  sugar,  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of 
butter;  sixteen  whites  of  eggs,  well  beaten,  two  pounds  of  flour,  half 
a  pint  of  milk.  Cream  the  butter  and  sugar  together,  work  in  other 
materials  in  order  named.  Flavor  with  the  juice  and  grated  rind  of 
an  orange  and  a  tablespoonful  of  orange-flower  water. 

Composition  Cake. — One  and  one-half  pounds  of  flour,  one  pound 
of  sugar,  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  butter,  one  coffee-cup  of  milk, 
four  eggs,  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  currants,  half  a  pound  of 
raisins,  a  little  spice  and  saleratus. 

Black  Cake. — One  pound  each  of  sugar,  flour  and  butter;  two 
pounds  of  raisins,  two  of  Zante  currants,  and  one  of  citron  ;  ten  ectrs 
two  dozen  pounded  cloves,  besides  mace  and  cinnamon  ;  stir  the 
butter  to  a  cream,  beat  the  yolks  light,  mix  them  with  the  butter,  add 
the  sugar,  spice,  juice  of  a  lemon  and  the  grated  peel,  a  glass  of  rose- 
water,  and  the  beaten  whites  of  the  eggs;  sprinkle  flour  over  the  first, 
and  put  it  in  the  last  of  all  the  ingredients.  A  gill  of  mola.sses  im- 
proves the  cake. 

Yellow  Plum  Cake. — One  pound  and  a-half  of  flour,  one  pound 
and  a-half  of  butter,  one  pound  and  a-half  of  sugar,  one  pound  and  a- 
half  of  currants,  one  pound  and  a-half  of  raisins,  fourteen  eggs,  half 
of  the  whites  left  out ;  two  nutmegs,  one  teacup  of  brand)-. 

Jelly  Cake. — Three  eggs,  two  teacups  of  flour,  one  and  a-half 


532  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

teacups  of  white  sugar,  half  a  teacup  of  butter,  half  a  teaspoonful  of 
soda,  one  teaspoonful  of  cream  of  tartar,  half  a  teacup  of  sweet  milk. 
Season  with  wine  and  nutmeg. 

Lemon  Cake. — Take  a  teacup  of  butter,  three  of  loaf-sugar,  rub 
them  to  a  cream ;  stir  into  them  the  yolks  of  five  eggs,  well  beaten ; 
dissolve  a  teaspoonful  of  saleratus  in  a  teacup  of  milk,  and  add  the 
milk,  the  grated  peel  of  a  lemon  and  a  little  of  the  juice,  and  the 
whites  of  five  eggs  beaten  to  a  froth ;  sift  in  as  light  as  possible  four 
teacups  of  flour.     Bake  in  two  long  tins  about  half  an  hour. 

FiRST-NiGHT  Cakes. — A  teacup  of  sour  cream,  two  small  eggs, 
half  a  teaspoonful  of  soda,  a  little  salt;  flour  so  that  it  can  be  rolled. 

Soda  Cake. — One  cup  of  sweet  milk,  one  egg,  butter  about  the 
size  of  an  egg,  one  full  cup  of  sugar,  two  tea.spoonfuls  of  cream  of 
tartar,  one  teaspoonful  of  soda. 

Corn-Starch  Cake. — Half  a  cup  of  butter,  one  cup  of  sugar,  the 
whites  of  three  eggs,  one  cup  of  sifted  flour,  half  a  cup  of  corn-starch, 
half  a  teaspoonful  of  soda,  half  a  cup  of  sweet  milk,  one  teaspoonful 
of  cream  of  tartar, 

Graham  Cake. — One  teacup  of  sugar,  one  of  sour  milk,  two  table- 
spoonfuls  of  butter,  one  tea.spoonful  of  saleratus,  two  kinds  of  spice; 
make  it  rather  stiff;  chopped  raisins  can  be  added  if  desired. 

Delicate  Cake. — One  cup  of  butter,  one  and  a  half  cups  of  sugar, 
whites  of  nine  eggs,  two  and  three-quarter  cups  of  flour,  level  tea- 
spoonful of  cream  of  tartar,  half  a  teaspoonful  of  soda,  half  a  cup  of 
sweet  milk  ;  flavor  to  taste ;  slow  oven. 

Gold  Cake. — One  cup  of  sugar,  three-quarters  of  a  cup  of  butter, 
two  cups  of  sifted  flour,  half  a  cup  of  sweet  milk,  one  teaspoonful  of 
cream  of  tartar,  half  a  teaspoonful  of  soda,  yolks  of  eight  eggs. 

Cup  Cake  (i). — One  cup  of  butter,  three  cups  of  sugar,  five  eggs,  one 
cup  of  milk,  four  cups  of  flour,  one  teaspoonful  of  soda;  juice  of  one 
lemon  and  grated  rind  of  same;  this  makes  two  bars;  the  lemon  can 
be  omitted  and  raisins  used  if  desired. 

Cup  Cake  (2). — Four  cups  of  flour  (sifted),  four  eggs,  two  cups  of 
butter,  two  of  sugar,  one  cup  of  milk,  two  pounds  of  raisins,  one  tea- 
spoonful of  saleratus,  one  nutmeg;  cinnamon  and  cloves. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  533 

White  Mountain  Cake. — Half  a  pound  of  butter,  one  pound  of 
sugar,  one  pound  of  flour,  one  cup  of  sweet  milk,  six  eggs,  three 
teaspoonfuls  of  baking-powder;  flavor  with  almond. 

White  Mountain  Cake — Frosting. — The  whites  of  four  eggs, 
four  cups  of  powdered  sugar;  flavor  with  almond;  be  careful  not  to 
get  enough  to  destroy  the  flavor  of  the  cocoanut;  bake  the  cake  in 
jelly-cake-tins;  put  frosting  and  grated  cocoanut  (one  nut)  between 
the  cakes. 

Doughnuts  (i). — Six  and  a  half  pounds  of  flour,  two  pounds  of 
sugar,  one  pound  of  lard  or  butter,  three  pints  of  milk,  half  a  pint  of 
yeast,  four  eggs,  a  little  salt;  mix  them  at  night,  and  boil  them  next 
day  if  very  light. 

Doughnuts  (2). — One  cup  of  sweet  milk,  one  cup  of  sugar,  one 
egg,  two  tablespoonfuls  of  melted  butter  or  lard,  one  teaspoonful  of 
soda,  two  teaspoonfuls  of  cream  of  tartar;  flavor  with  nutmeg,  add  a 
little  salt ;  flour  enough  to  roll  easily. 

Fruit  Cake. — Three  pounds  of  flour,  three  pounds  of  sugar,  three 
pounds  of  butter,  thirty  eggs,  one  ounce  of  cinnamon,  four  or  five 
nutmegs,  cloves  to  your  judgment,  half  a  pint  of  wine  and  brandy 
each,  six  pounds  of  currants,  five  pounds  of  stoned  raisins,  one  citron 
and  a  half 

Ginger  Snaps. — One  cup  of  brown  sugar,  one  cup  of  molasses,  one 
cup  of  butter,  two  teaspoonfuls  of  soda,  one  tablespoonful  of  ginger. 
Boil  the  molasses  and  sugar,  then  add  the  other  things,  and  mix  stiff 
enough  to  roll. 

A  Plain  but  Excellent  Cake. — Three  cups  of  granulated  sugar, 
one  and  a  half  cups  of  butter,  two  cups  of  cold  water,  three  eggs, 
seven  cups  of  sifted  flour,  two  teaspoonfuls  of  vanilla  or  nutmeg,  three 
teaspoonfuls  of  baking  powder,  and  a  small  quantity  of  salt. 

Molasses  Drops. — One  cup  of  sugar,  almost  one  cup  of  butter, 
mixed  together;  one  cup  of  molasses,  two  eggs,  one  cup  of  milk,  one 
teaspoonful  of  salcratus,  five  cups  of  flour. 

Cocoanut  Cake. — One  pound  of  butter,  two  pounds  of  sugar,  two 
grated  cocoanuts,  mixed  well,  one  cup  of  milk  and  the  milk  of  the 


534  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

cocoanuts,  one  pound  and  three-fourths  of  flour,  ten  eggs,  half  a  tea- 
spoonful  of  soda;  flavor  with  nutmeg;  this  quantity  will  make  two 
loaves. 

Lady  Fingers. — Beat  the  yolks  of  four  eggs  with  a  quarter  of  a 
pound  of  sugar  till  smooth  and  light;  whisk  the  whites  of  the  eggs, 
and  add  to  these  and  sift  in  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  flour;  make  into 
a  smooth  paste,  and  lay  on  buttered  paper  in  the  size  and  shape  the 
cakes  are  required;  bake  quickly;  while  hot,  press  two  of  the  cakes 
into  one  on  the  flat  side. 

Jumbles. — Ten  cups  of  flour,  two  teaspoonfuls  of  soda,  three  of 
cream  of  tartar,  one-half  cup  of  sweet  milk;  sift  soda  or  cream  of 
tartar  into  the  flour;  mix  it  well;  beat  eight  eggs  very  light,  adding 
four  cups  of  sugar  to  the  eggs,  two  cups  of  butter  into  the  flour,  and 
flavor  to  taste;  pour  in  eggs,  sugar  and  milk;  mix  up  quickly  with 
the  hand;  roll  out  thin,  cut  and  bake  nicely,  and  you  will  have  ex- 
cellent small  cakes. 

Pound  Cake. — One  pound  of  butter,  one  pound  and  a  quarter  of 
flour,  one  pound  of  pounded  loaf-sugar,  one  pound  of  currants,  nine 
eggs,  two  ounces  of  candied  peel,  half  an  ounce  of  citron,  half  an 
ounce  of  sweet  almonds;  when  liked,  a  little  pounded  mace.  Work 
the  butter  to  a  cream;  dredge  in  the  flour;  add  the  sugar,  currants, 
candied  peel,  which  should  be  cut  into  neat  slices,  and  the  almonds, 
which  should  be  blanched  and  chopped,  and  mix  all  these  well  to- 
gether; whisk  the  eggs,  and  let  them  be  thoroughly  blended  with 
the  dry  ingredients;  beat  the  cake  well  for  twenty  minutes,  and  put 
it  into  a  round  tin,  lined  at  the  bottom  and  sides  with  a  strip  of 
white,  buttered  paper.  Bake  it  from  one  and  a  half  to  two  hours, 
and  let  the  oven  be  well  heated  when  the  cake  is  first  put  in,  as,  if 
this  is  not  the  case,  the  currants  will  all  sink  to  the  bottom  of  it.  To 
make  this  preparation  light,  the  yolks  and  whites  of  the  eggs  should 
be  beaten  separately,  and  added  separately  to  the  other  ingredients. 
A  glass  of  wine  is  sometimes  added  to  the  mixture;  but  this  is 
scarcely  necessary,  as  the  cake  will  be  found  quite  rich  enough  with- 
out it.     Cook  one  and  a  half  to  two  hours. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  535 

Macaroons. — Half  a  pound  of  sweet  almonds,  half"  a  pound  of 
sifted  loaf-sugar,  the  whites  of  three  eggs,  wafer-paper.  Blanch,  skin 
and  dry  the  almonds,  and  pound  them  well  with  a  little  orange-flower 
water  or  plain  water;  then  add  to  them  the  sifted  sugar  and  the 
whites  of  the  eggs,  which  should  be  beaten  to  a  stiff  froth,  and  mix 
all  the  ingredients  well  together.  When  the  paste  looks  soft,  drop  it 
at  equal  distances  from  a  biscuit-syringe  on  to  sheets  of  wafer-paper ; 
put  a  strip  of  almond  on  the  top  of  each;  strew  some  sugar  over,  and 
bake  the  macaroons  in  rather  a  slow  oven,  of  a  light-brown  color. 
When  hard  and  set  they  are  done,  and  must  not  be  allowed  to  get 
very  brown,  as  that  would  spoil  their  appearance.  If  the  cakes, 
when  baked,  appear  heavy,  add  a  little  more  white  of  egg,  but  let 
this  always  be  well  whisked  before  it  is  added  to  the  other  ingredi- 
ents.    Cook  from  fifteen  to  twenty  minutes,  in  a  slow  oven. 

Cookies  (i). — One  teacup  of  butter,  two  teacups  of  sugar,  half  a 
teaspoonful  of  soda,  and  one  of  cream  of  tartar,  three  eggs,  flour 
enough  to  roll;  flavor  with  cinnamon  and  lemon. 

Cookies  (2). — One  cup  of  butter,  two  cups  of  sugar,  one  egg,  a 
small  nutmeg,  one  teaspoonful  of  saleratus,  one  cup  of  milk;  flour 
enough  to  roll  out  thin. 

Minute  Cookies  {ivitJiotit  eggs). — One  cup  of  sugar,  half  a  cup  of 
water,  half  a  cup  of  butter,  one  pint  of  flour,  and  half  a  teaspoonful 
of  saleratus  or  soda.  Rub  the  sugar,  butter  and  flour  together ;  then 
add  the  soda,  dissolved  in  water.  Roll  thin,  and  bake  in  a  quick 
oven. 

Molasses  Cookies. — One  cup  of  molasses,  half  a  cup  each  of 
sugar,  butter  and  sweet  milk,  and  one  tablcspoonful  of  ginger;  add  a 
little  salt,  and  dissolve  half  a  teaspoonful  of  saleratus  in  the  milk. 
Work  these  ingredients  together,  adding  only  flour  sufficient  to  ena- 
ble you  to  roll  the  dough  out  easily.  Bake  in  a  moderately  heated 
oven. 

Gingerbread. — Two  cups  of  molasses,  one  cup  of  butter,  one  cup 
of  water,  one  heaping  tablcspoonful  of  ginger,  one  teaspoonful  of 
salt;  add  flour  enougli  to  roll  it.  This  quantity  is  sufficient  for  four 
tins,  and  should  be  bakctl  in  a  cjuick  oven. 


536  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

Soft  Gingerbread. — One  cup  of  cream,  one  cup  of  molasses,  one 
egg,  one  small  teaspoonful  of  soda,  dissolved  in  a  little  hot  water ; 
flour  enough  to  make  it  thick.  If  it  is  not  convenient  to  use  cream, 
take  one  cup  of  sour  milk  and  two  tablespoonfuls  of  melted  butter. 

Cake  for  Jelly, — One  cup  of  butter,  two  cups  of  sugar,  three 
cups  of  flour,  four  eggs.     Nutmeg  and  one  teaspoonful  of  vanilla. 

CocoANUT  Drops. — One  pound  of  cocoanut,  grated  and  dried,  one 
pound  of  sugar,  six  eggs ;  dropped  on  paper  and  baked  in  a  slack 
oven. 

Rice  Cakes. — One  pound  of  rice-flour,  one  pound  of  sugar,  half 
a  pound  of  butter,  eight  eggs,  and  half  a  nutmeg. 

Light  Tea  Cake. — Beat  the  whites  and  yolks  of  two  eggs  sepa- 
rately; take  two-thirds  of  a  cup  of  thick,  sweet  cream,  a  cup  of  sugar, 
half  a  teaspoonful  of  salt ;  put  in  the  yolks,  and  whip  these  ingredi- 
ents briskly;  then  sift  in  a  rounded-up  cup  of  flour,  in  which  has 
been  stirred  a  teaspoonful  of  baking-powder;  add  the  whites  of  the 
eggs,  and  flavor  to  suit  the  taste. 

Honey  Cake. — One  cup  of  butter,  two  cups  of  honey,  four  eggs 
well  beaten,  one  teaspoonful  of  essence  of  lemon,  half  a  cupful  of 
sour  milk,  one  teaspoonful  of  soda,  flour  enough  to  make  it  as  stiff 
as  can  be  well  stirred;  bake  at  once  in  a  quick  oven. 

White  Cup  Cake. — Four  pounds  of  sugar,  and  one  of  butter; 
beat  five  eggs  with  the  sugar ;  put  one  teaspoonful  of  soda  in  a  cup 
of  sour  milk;  grate  one  nutmeg  and  put  in  it,  with  one  teaspoonful 
of  cinnamon;  then  cream  the  butter  and  flour  together;  add  the  eggs 
and  sugar,  with  the  other  ingredients;  stir  it  well,  and  bake  in  a  tin 
mould. 

Fruit  Cake. — One  pound  of  flour,  one  of  sugar,  three-quarters  of 
a  pound  of  butter,  two  pounds  of  seeded  raisins,  two  of  currants,  one 
of  citron,  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  almonds,  half  an  ounce  of  mace,  a 
teaspoonful  of  rose-water,  a  wineglass  of  brandy,  one  of  wine,  and 
ten  eggs.  Stir  the  sugar  and  butter  to  a  cream,  then  add  the  whites 
and  yolks  of  the  eggs  beaten  separately  to  a  froth;  stir  in  the  flour 
gradually,  then   the  wine,  brandy  and   spice.      Add  the   fruit  just 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  537 

before  it  is  put  into  the  pans.  It  takes  over  two  hours  to  bake  it  if 
the  loaves  are  thick,  if  the  loaves  are  thin  it  will  bake  in  less  time. 
This  kind  of  cake  is  the  best  after  it  has  been  made  three  or  four 
weeks,  and  it  will  keep  good  five  or  six  months. 

Economical  Fruit  Cake. — One  cup  of  butter,  half  a  cup  of  sugar, 
two  cups  of  raisins,  two  eggs,  one  teaspoonful  of  soda;  spices  to  suit 
the  taste;  citron,  if  you  choose. 

COFFEE,  TEA  AND  BEVERAGES. 

The  most  important  thing  for  a  breakfast  is  coffee.  With  a  cup 
of  coffee  and  a  piece  of  dry  toast  one  can  manage  to  get  through 
the  morning  until  luncheon  time.  To  many,  coffee  is  as  meat 
and  drink.  Pope,  who  was  very  fond  of  coffee,  was  in  the  habit  of 
calling  up  his  servant  in  the  middle  of  the  night  to  prepare  it  for 
him ;  he  couldn't  wait  for  morning  to  come.  In  those  days  it  was 
the  custom — and  it  was  not  a  bad  one,  either — to  grind  and  make  the 
coffee  at  the  table. 

Tea  and  coffee  both  excite  the  activity  of  the  brain  and  nerves. 
Tea,  it  is  said,  increases  the  power  of  digesting  the  impressions  we 
have  received,  creates  a  thorough  meditation,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
movements  of  thoughts,  permits  the  attention  to  be  fixed  upon  a  cer- 
tain subject.  On  the  other  hand,  if  tea  is  taken  in  excess,  it  causes 
an  increased  irritability  of  the  nerves,  characterized  by  sleeplessness, 
with  a  general  feeling  of  restlessness  and  trembling  of  the  limbs. 
Coffee,  also,  if  taken  in  excess,  produces  sleeplessness  and  many 
baneful  effects,  very  similar  to  those  arising  from  tea-drinking. 

Coffee. — To  have  coffee  in  perfection,  it  should  be  roasted  and 
ground  just  before  it  is  used,  and  more  should  not  be  ground  at  a 
time  than  is  wanted  for  immediate  use,  or  if  it  be  necessary  to  grind 
more,  it  should  be  kept  closed  from  the  air.  Coffee  readily  imbibes 
exhalations  from  other  substances,  and  thus  often  acquires  a  bad 
flavor;  brown  sugar  placed  near  it  will  communicate  a  disagreeable 
flavor. 

To  Roast  Coffee  (a  French  recipe). — It  being  an  acknowledged  fact 


538  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

that  the  best  French  coffee  is  decidedly  superior  to  that  made  here, 
and  as  the  roasting  of  the  berry  is  of  great  importance  to  the  flavor 
of  the  preparation,  it  will  be  useful  and  interesting  to  know  how  they 
manage  these  things  in  France.  In  Paris  there  are  two  houses 
justly  celebrated  for  the  flavor  of  their  coffee — La  Maison  Corcellet 
and  La  Maison  Royer  de  Chartres ;  and  to  obtain  this  flavor,  before 
roasting  they  add  to  every  three  pounds  of  coffee  a  piece  of  butter 
the  size  of  a  nut,  and  a  dessertspoonful  of  powdered  sugar;  it  is  then 
roasted  in  the  usual  manner.  The  addition  of  the  butter  and  sugar 
develops  the  flavor  and  aroma  of  the  berry;  but  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  quality  of  the  butter  must  be  of  the  very  best  de- 
scription. 

To  make  Essence  of  Coffee. — To  every  quarter  of  a  pound  of 
ground  coffee  allow  one  small  teaspoonful  of  powdered  chiccory, 
three  small  teacupfuls,  or  one  pint,  of  water.  Let  the  coffee  be 
freshly  ground,  and,  if  possible,  freshly  roasted;  put  it  into  a  perco- 
lator, or  filter,  with  the  chiccory,  and  pour  slowly  over  it  the  above 
proportion  of  boiling  water.  When  it  has  all  filtered  through,  warm 
the  coffee  sufficiently  to  bring  it  to  the  simmering  point,  but  do  not 
allow  it  to  boil;  then  filter  it  a  second  time,  put  it  into  a  clean  and 
dry  bottle,  cork  it  well,  and  it  will  remain  good  for  several  days. 
Two  tablespoonfuls  of  this  essence  are  quite  sufficient  for  a  breakfast- 
cupful  of  hot  milk.  This  essence  will  be  found  particularly  useful 
to  those  persons  who  have  to  rise  extremely  early,  and,  having  only 
the  milk  to  make  boiling,  is  very  easily  and  quickly  prepared. 
When  the  essence  is  bottled,  pour  another  three  teacupfuls  of  boil- 
ing water  slowly  on  the  grounds,  which,  when  filtered  through,  will 
be  very  weak  coffee.  The  next  time  there  is  essence  to  be  prepared, 
make  the  weak  coffee  boiling,  and  pour  it  on  the  ground  coffee 
instead  of  plain  water;  by  this  means  a  better  coffee  will  be  obtained. 
Never  throw  away  the  grounds  without  having  made  use  of  them  in 
this  manner,  and  always  cork  the  bottle  well  that  contains  this 
preparation  until  the  day  that  it  is  wanted  for  making  the  fresh 
essence. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  539 

To  MAKE  Coffee. — Allow  one-half  ounce,  or  one  tablespoonful  of 
ground  coffee  to  each  person ;  to  every  ounce  of  coffee  allow  one- 
third  pint  of  water.  To  make  coffee  good  it  should  never  be  boiled, 
but  the  boiling  water  merely  poured  on  it,  the  same  as  for  tea.  The 
coffee  should  always  be  purchased  in  the  berry — if  possible,  freshly 
roasted ;  and  it  should  never  be  ground  long  before  it  is  wanted  for 
use.  There  are  very  many  new  kinds  of  coffee-pots,  but  the  method 
of  making  the  coffee  is  nearly  always  the  same,  namely,  pouring  the 
boiling  water  on  the  powder,  and  allowing  it  to  filter  through. 
Coffee  should  always  be  served  very  hot,  and,  if  possible,  in  the 
same  vessel  in  which  it  is  made,  as  pouring  it  from  one  pot  to 
another  cools,  and  consequently  spoils  it.  Many  persons  may  think 
that  the  proportion  of  water  we  have  given  for  each  ounce  of  coffee 
is  rather  small.  It  is  so,  and  the  coffee  produced  from  it  will  be 
very  strong;  one-third  of  a  cup  will  be  found  quite  sufficient,  which 
should  be  filled  up  with  nice  hot  milk,  or  milk  and  cream  mixed. 
Should  the  ordinary  method  of  making  coffee  be  preferred,  use  dou- 
ble the  quantity  of  water,  and,  in  pouring  it  into  the  cups,  put  in 
more  coffee  and  less  milk. 

Another  Mode  of  making  Coffee. — Put  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of 
fresh-roasted  coffee  (this  will  be  sufficient  for  three  persons)  in  a 
basin,  and  break  into  it  an  egg — yolk,  white,  shell  and  all;  mix  it  up 
with  the  spoon  to  the  consi.stence  of  mortar.  Put  warm,  not  boiling, 
water  in  the  coffee-pot;  let  it  boil  up  and  break  three  times;  then 
stand  a  few  minutes  and  it  will  be  as  clear  as  amber,  and  the  egg  will 
give  it  a  rich  taste. 

The  rank  flavor  often  observed  in  coffee  may  be  sometimes  justly 
referred  to  the  tin  coffee-pot  in  which  it  is  boiled  and  allowed  to  re- 
main a  while.  An  earthen  or  porcelain-lined  vessel  is  the  best  for 
makingr  coffee. 

o 

Nutritious  Coffee. — Half  an  ounce  of  ground  coffee,  one  pint  of 
milk.  Let  the  coffee  be  freshly  ground;  put  it  into  a  saucepan  with 
the  milk,  which  should  be  made  nearly  boiling  before  the  coffee  is 

put  in,  and  boil  both  together  for  three  minutes;  clear  it  h\'  pouring 


540  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

some  of  it  into  a  cup  and  then  back  again,  and  leave  it  on  the  hob 
for  a  few  minutes  to  settle  thoroughly.  This  coffee  may  be  made 
still  more  nutritious  by  the  addition  of  an  egg  well  beaten  and  put 
into  the  coffee-cup. 

To  MAKE  Good  Coffee  {Mrs.  Paiierson's  recipe). — Take  an  ordi- 
nary teacup  of  ground  coffee  for  four  persons,  mix  with  it  a  small 
egg  ;  pour  in  the  coffee-pot.  Add  one  quart  of  cold  water,  set  back 
on  the  stove  where  it  will  not  boil,  but  steep  for  half  an  hour,  shaking 
occasionally  to  mix  it.  A  few  minutes  before  serving,  add  the  de- 
sired quantity  of  boiling  water  and  let  it  boil  now  for  a  few  minutes  ; 
take  off,  pour  out  some,  and  return  it,  let  it  stand  a  few  minutes,  and 
it  is  ready  to  serve.  To  have  this,  as  all  other  coffee,  good,  the  cof- 
fee-pot should  be  bright  inside. 

Adulterated  Coffee  —  how  to  Detect  It. —  Ground  coffee 
affords  a  field  for  adulteration,  and  for  this  purpose  chiccory,  carrots, 
caramel,  date-seeds,  etc.,  are  the  substances  most  commonly  used. 
The  beans  have  of  late  years  been  skilfully  imitated,  but  as  coffee  is 
mostly  purchased '  in  the  ground  condition,  the  chief  point  for  the 
consumer  is  to  be  able  to  form  some  idea  as  to  the  character  of  the 
latter  article,  and  the  following  are  a  few  simple  and  reliable  tests: 

Take  a  little  of  the  coffee  and  press  it  between  the  fingers,  or  give 
it  a  squeeze  in  the  paper  in  which  it  is  bought;  if  genuine,  it  will  not 
form  a  coherent  mass,  as  coffee-grains  are  hard  and  do  not  readily 
adhere  to  each  other ;  but  if  the  grains  stick  to  each  other  and  form 
a  sort  of"  cake,"  you  may  be  pretty  sure  of  adulteration  in  the  shape 
of  chiccory,  for  the  grains  of  chiccory  are  softer  and  more  open,  and 
adhere  without  difficulty  when  squeezed.  Again,  if  you  place  a  few 
grains  in  a  saucer  and  moisten  them  with  a  little  cold  water,  chiccory 
will  very  quickly  become  soft  like  bread-crumbs,  while  coffee  will 
take  a  long  time  to  soften.  A  third  test :  take  a  wine-glass  or  a 
tumbler  full  of  water,  and  gently  drop  a  pinch  of  the  ground  coffee 
on  the  surface  of  the  water  without  stirring  or  agitating;  genuine 
coffee  will  float  for  some  time,  whilst  chiccory  or  any  other  soft  root 
will  soon  sink  ;  and  chiccory  or  caramel  will  cause  a  yellowish  or 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  54I 

brownish  color  to  diffuse  rapidly  through  the  water,  while  pure 
coffee  will  give  no  sensible  tint  under  such  circumstances  for  a  con- 
siderable length  of  time.  "  Coffee  mixtures  "  or  "  coffee  improvers  " 
should  be  avoided.  They  seldom  consist  of  anything  but  chiccory 
and  caramel, 

"  French  coffee,"  so  widely  used  at  present,  is  generally  ground 
coffee,  the  beans  of  which  have  been  roasted  with  a  certain  amount 
of  sugar,  which,  coating  over  the  bean,  has  retained  more  of  the 
original  aroma  than  in  ordinary  coffee,  but  this,  of  course,  at  the 
expense  of  the  reduced  percentage  of  coffee  due  to  the  presence  of 
the  caramel. 

To  Make  Tea. — There  is  very  little  art  in  making  good  tea ;  if 
the  water  is  boiling,  and  there  is  no  sparing  of  the  fragrant  leaf,  the 
beverage  will  almost  invariably  be  good.  The  old-fashioned  plan  of 
allowing  a  teaspoonful  to  each  person,  and  one  over,  is  still  practised. 
Warm  the  teapot  with  boiling  water ;  let  it  remain  for  two  or  three 
minutes  for  the  vessel  to  become  thoroughly  hot,  then  pour  it  away. 
Put  in  the  tea,  pour  in  from  one-half  to  three-quarters  of  a  pint  of 
boiling  water,  close  the  lid,  and  let  it  stand  for  the  tea  to  draw  from 
five  to  ten  minutes ;  then  fill  up  the  pot  with  water.  The  tea  will  be 
quite  spoiled  unless  made  with  water  that  is  actually  boiling,  as  the 
leaves  will  not  open,  and  the  flavor  not  be  extracted  from  them ;  the 
beverage  will  consequently  be  colorless  and  tasteless — in  fact,  nothing 
but  tepid  water.  Where  there  is  a  very  large  party  to  make  tea  for,  it 
is  a  good  plan  to  have  two  tea-pots  instead  of  putting  a  large  quan- 
tity of  tea  into  one  pot;  the  tea,  besides,  will  go  further.  When  the 
infusion  has  been  once  completed  the  addition  of  fresh  tea  adds  very 
little  to  the  strength  ;  so,  when  more  is  required,  have  the  pot  emptied 
of  the  old  leaves,  scalded,  and  fresh  tea  made  in  the  usual  manner. 
Economists  say  that  a  few  grains  of  carbonate  of  soda,  added  before 
the  boiling  water  is  poured  on  the  tea,  assist  to  draw  out  the  good- 
ness •  if  the  water  is  very  hard,  perhaps  it  is  a  good  plan,  as  the  soda 
softens  it;  but  care  must  be  taken  to  use  this  ingredient  sparingly,  as 
it  is  liable  to  give  the  tea  a  soapy  taste  if  added  in  too  large  a  quan- 
34 


54-  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

tity.  For  mixed  tea,  the  usual  proportion  is  four  spoonfuls  of  black 
to  one  of  green ;  more  of  the  latter  when  the  flavor  is  very  much 
liked ;  but  strong  green  tea  is  highly  pernicious,  and  should  never  be 
partaken  of  too  freely. 

Green  Tea. — Green  tea  should  not  be  boiled ;  it  has  the  freshest 
taste  when  steeped  in  an  earthen  teapot  which  has  been  previously 
scalded,  leaving  it  to  stand  by  the  fire  ten  or  fifteen  minutes ;  turn 
only  a  small  quantity  of  scalding  water  upon  the  tea  while  steeping, 
but  fill  the  pot  when  ready  to  take  to  the  table. 

Chocolate  (i). — A  very  old  French  recipe  for  making  breakfast 
chocolate  has  been  carefully  tested  and  found  perfect  by  the  writer ; 
simply  place  a  square  in  a  cup,  and  pour  upon  it  enough  boiling  milk 
to  dissolve  it  into  a  paste ;  meantime  have  the  milk  boiling  in  a 
sauce-pan  until  it  boils  to  a  bubble,  then  gently  stir  in  the  paste,  stir- 
ring until  thoroughly  mixed,  and  sweeten  to  taste.  The  white  of 
eggs  foamed  on  top  is  an  improvement. 

Chocolate  (2). — Put  into  a  coffee-pot  set  in  boiling  water,  one  quart 
of  new  milk  (or  a  pint  each  of  cream  and  milk) ;  stir  into  it  three 
heaping  tablespoonfuls  of  grated  chocolate  mixed  to  a  paste  with 
cold  milk  ;  let  boil  two  or  three  minutes  and  serve  at  once.  If  not 
wanted  so  rich,  use  half  water  and  half  milk. 

To  MAKE  Chocolate  (3). — Allow  one-half  ounce  of  chocolate  to 
each  person;  to  every  ounce  allow  one-half  pint  of  water,  one-half  pint 
of  milk.  Make  the  milk  and  water  hot;  scrape  the  chocolate  into  it 
and  stir  the  mixture  constantly  and  quickly  until  the  chocolate  is 
dissolved;  bring  it  to  the  boiling-point,  stir  it  well,  and  serve  directly 
with  white  sugar. 

Miss  Evarts'  Chocolate. — A  daughter  of  Secretary  Evarts  was 
noted  in  Washington  for  the  delicious  chocolate  served  at  his  recep- 
tions. Her  recipe  is  as  follows :  Break  up  the  chocolate  and  place 
in  a  warm  spot  to  melt.  Put  in  a  farina  kettle  and  pour  on  boiling 
milk.  Stir  while  pouring  in  the  milk,  and  stir  constantly  while  cook- 
ing. Let  it  boil  some  minutes,  and  serve  with  whipped  cream.  Use 
Maillard's  chocolate,  already  sweetened. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  543 

To  MAKE  Cocoa. — Allow  two  teaspoonfuls  of  prepared  cocoa  to 
one  breakfast-cup ;  boiling  milk  and  boiling  water.  Put  the  cocoa  into 
a  breakfast-cup,  pour  over  it  sufficient  cold  milk  to  make  it  into  a 
paste ;  then  add  equal  quantities  of  boiling  milk  and  boiling  water, 
and  stir  all  well  together.  Care  must  be  taken  not  to  allow  the  milk 
to  get  burnt,  as  it  will  entirely  spoil  the  flavor  of  the  preparation. 
The  above  directions  are  usually  given  for  making  the  prepared 
cocoa.  The  rock  cocoa,  or  that  bought  in  a  solid  piece,  should  be 
scraped,  and  made  in  the  same  manner,  taking  care  to  rub  down  all 
the  lumps  before  the  boiling  liquid  is  added. 

An  Excellent  Substitute  for  Milk  or  Cream  in  Tea  or  Cof- 
fee.— Allow  one  new-laid  egg  to  every  large  breakfast-cupful  of  tea 
or  coffee.  Beat  up  the  whole  of  the  egg  in  a  basin,  put  it  into  a  tea- 
cup (or  a  portion  of  it,  if  the  cup  be  small),  and  pour  over  it  the  tea 
or  coffee  very  hot.  These  should  be  added  very  gradually,  and 
stirred  all  the  time,  to  prevent  the  egg  from  curdling.  In  point  of 
nourishment,  both  these  beverages  are  much  improved  by  this  addi- 
tion.    Allow  one  egg  to  every  large  breakfast-cupful  of  tea  or  coffee. 

To  make  Barley-water. — Two  ounces  of  pearl-barley,  two  quarts 
of  boiling  water,  one  pint  of  cold  water.  Wash  the  barley  in  cold 
water;  put  it  into  a  saucepan  with  the  above  proportion  of  cold 
water,  and  when  it  has  boiled  for  about  one-quarter  of  an  hour, 
strain  off  the  water,  and  add  the  two  quarts  of  fresh  boiling  water. 
Boil  it  until  the  liquid  is  reduced  one-half;  strain  it,  and  it  will  be 
ready  for  use.  It  may  be  flavored  with  lemon-peel,  after  being 
sweetened,  or  a  small  piece  may  be  simmered  with  the  barley. 
When  the  invalid  may  take  it,  a  little  lemon-juice  gives  this  pleasant 
drink  in  illness  a  very  nice  flavor.  Boil  until  the  liquid  is  reduced 
one-half. 

To  make  Toast-and-Water. — A  slice  of  bread,  one  quart  of  boil- 
ing water.  Cut  a  slice  from  a  stale  loaf  (a  piece  of  hard  crust  is  bet- 
ter than  anything  else  for  the  purpose) ;  toast  it  of  a  nice  brown  on 
every  side,  but  do  not  allow  it  to  burn  or  blacken.  Put  it  into  a  jug^ 
pour  the  boiling  water  over  it,  cover  it  closely,  and  let  it  remain  un- 


544  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

til  cold.  When  strained,  it  will  be  ready  for  use.  Toast-and-water 
should  always  be  made  a  short  time  before  it  is  required,  to  enable  it 
to  get  cold;  if  drunk  in  a  tepid  or  lukewarm  state,  it  is  an  exceed- 
ingly disagre;eable  beverage.  If,  as  is  sometimes  the  case,  this  drink 
is  wanted  in  a  hurry,  put  the  toasted  bread  into  a  jug,  and  only  just 
cover  it  with  the  boiling  water;  when  this  is  cool,  cold  water  may  be 
added  in  the  proportion  required — the  toast-and-water  strained;  it 
will  then  be  ready  for  use,  and  is  more  expeditiously  prepared  than 
by  the  above  method. 

Nourishing  Lemonade. — One  and  one-half  pints  of  boiling  water, 
the  juice  of  four  lemons,  the  rinds  of  two,  one  half-pint  of  sherry, 
four  eggs,  six  ounces  of  loaf-sugar.  Pare  off  the  lemon-rind  thinly, 
put  it  into  a  jug  with  the  sugar,  and  pour  over  the  boiling  water;  let 
it  cool,  then  strain  it;  add  the  wine,  lemon-juice  and  eggs,  previously 
well  beaten,  and  also  strained,  and  the  beverage  will  be  ready  for 
use.  If  thought  desirable,  the  quantity  of  sherry  and  water  could  be 
lessened,  and  milk  substituted  for  them.  To  obtain  the  flavor  of  the 
lemon-rind  properly,  a  few  lumps  of  the  sugar  should  be  rubbed  over 
it,  until  some  of  the  yellow  is  absorbed. 

Lemonade. — The  rind  of  two  lemons,  the  juice  of  three  laVge  or 
four  small  ones,  half  a  pound  of  loaf-sugar,  one  quart  of  boiling 
water.  Rub  some  of  the  sugar,  in  lumps,  on  two  of  the  lemons  un- 
til they  have  imbibed  all  the  oil  from  them,  and  put  it  with  the  re- 
mainder of  the  sugar  into  a  jug;  add  the  lemon-juice  (but  no  pips), 
and  pour  over  the  whole  a  quart  of  boiling  water;  when  the  sugar  is 
dissolved,  strain  the  lemonade  through  a  fine  sieve  or  piece  of  mus- 
lin, and  when  cool  it  will  be  ready  for  use.  The  lemonade  will  be 
much  improved  by  having  the  white  of  an  egg  beaten  up  in  it;  a  lit- 
tle sherry  mixed  with  it,  also,  makes  this  beverage  much  nicer. 

Flax-Seed  Lemonade. — Four  tablespoonfuls  flax-seed,  whole ; 
one  quart  boiling  water  poured  upon  the  flax-seed;  juice  of  two 
lemons,  leaving  out  the  peel ;  sweeten  to  taste ;  steep  three  hours  in 
a  covered  pitcher;  if  too  thick,  put  in  cold  water  with  the  lemon- 
juice  and  sugar.     Good  for  colds. 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  545 

MILK,  CHEESE,  BUTTER,  ETC. 

To  Keep  Milk  and  Cream  in  Hot  Weather. — When  the 
weather  is  very  warm,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  prevent  milk  from 
turning  sour  and  spoiling  the  cream,  it  should  be  scalded,  and  then  it 
will  remain  good  for  a  few  hours.  It  must  on  no  account  be  allowed 
to  boil,  or  there  will  be  a  skin  instead  of  a  cream  upon  the  milk ;  and 
the  slower  the  process  the  safer  it  will  be.  A  very  good  plan  to  scald 
milk  is  to  put  the  pan  that  contains  it  into  a  saucepan  or  wide  kettle 
of  boiling  water.  When  the  surface  looks  thick,  the  milk  is  suffi- 
ciently scalded,  and  it  should  then  be  put  away  in  a  cool  place  in  the 
same  vessel  that  it  was  scalded  in.  Cream  may  be  kept  for  twenty- 
four  hours,  if  scalded  without  sugar;  and,  by  the  addition  of  the  lat- 
ter ingredient,  it  will  remain  good  double  the  time,  if  kept  in  a  cool 
place.  All  pans,  jugs  and  vessels  intended  for  milk  should  be  kept 
beautifully  clean,  and  well  scalded  before  the  riiilk  is  put  in,  as  any 
negligence  in  this  respect  may  cause  large  quantities  of  it  to  be 
spoiled ;  and  milk  should  never  be  kept  in  vessels  of  zinc  or  copper. 
Milk  may  be  preserved  good  in  hot  weather  for  a  few  hours  by  plac- 
ing the  jug  which  contains  it  in  ice,  or  very  cold  water;  or  a  pinch 
of  bicarbonate  of  soda  may  be  introduced  into  the  liquid.  Milk,  when 
of  good  quality,  is  of  an  opaque  white  color;  the  cream  always  comes 
to  the  top ;  the  well-known  milky  odor  is  strong ;  it  will  boil  without 
altering  its  appearance  in  these  respects ;  the  little  bladders  which 
arise  on  the  surface  will  renew  themselves  if  broken  by  the  spoon. 
To  boil  milk  is,  in  fact,  the  simplest  way  of  testing  its  quality.  The 
commonest  adulterations  of  milk  are  not  of  a  hurtful  character.  It  is 
a  good  deal  thinned  with  water,  and  sometimes  thickened  with  a  little 
starch,  or  colored  with  yolk  of  egg,  or  even  saffron ;  but  these  pro- 
cesses have  nothing  murderous  in  them. 

Toasted  Cheese,  or  Welsh  Rarebit. — Slices  of  bread,  butter, 
Cheshire  or  Gloucester  cheese,  mustard  and  pepper.  Cut  the  bread 
into  slices  about  half  an  inch  in  thickness ;  pare  off  the  crust,  toast 
the  bread  slightly,  without  hardening  or  burning  it,  and  spread  it  witH 


54^  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

butter.  Cut  some  slices,  not  quite  so  large  as  the  bread,  from  a  good, 
rich,  fat  cheese ;  lay  them  on  the  toasted  bread  in  a  cheese-toaster; 
be  careful  that  the  cheese  does  not  burn,  and  let  it  be  equally  melted. 
Spread  over  the  top  a  little  made  mustard  and  a  seasoning  of  pepper, 
and  serve  very  hot,  with  very  hot  plates.  To  facilitate  the  melting  of 
the  cheese,  it  may  be  cut  into  thin  flakes  or  toasted  on  one  side  before 
it  is  laid  on  the  bread.  As  it  is  so  essential  to  send  this  dish  hot  to 
table,  it  is  a  good  plan  to  melt  the  cheese  in  small,  round  silver  or 
metal  pans,  and  to  send  these  pans  to  table,  allowing  one  for  each 
guest.  Slices  of  dry  or  buttered  toast  should  always  accompany 
them,  with  mustard,  pepper  and  salt.  Should  the  cheese  be  dry,  a 
little  butter  mixed  with  it  will  be  an  improvement. 

Cottage  Cheese — (i). — To  make  cottage  cheese  take  nice,  clab- 
bered milk,  not  too  sour,  but  do  not  scald  it ;  pour  into  a  bag  of  thin 
cloth,  and  drain ;  when  it  is  drained  enough,  sprinkle  with  salt  and 
pepper ;  mash  fine ;  thin  to  a  batter  with  sweet  cream,  and  it  is  ready 
for  the  table. 

Cottage  Cheese — (2). — Take  some  sweet  milk  and  stand  it  on 
the  stove  in  a  new  pan  or  pail,  shaking  it  occasionally,  that  the  form- 
ing curd  may  not  settle  to  the  bottom.  Turn  the  edges  gently  that 
the  curd  may  form  evenly,  taking  care  not  to  break  it,  and  not  let  it 
cook  too  fast.  If  the  heat  is  about  right,  it  will  be  done  in  half  an 
hour.  Then  drain  off  the  whey  slowly,  pressing  down  on  the  curd 
until  only  whey  enough  remains  in  it  that  the  cheese  will  not  be  too 
dry — just  moist  enough  to  mix  well ;  then  salt  to  taste;  add  a  good 
lump  of  butter  and  work  well  with  the  hand ;  then  pack  it  down  in  a 
crock,  leaving  all  the  moisture  in  it.  This  is  better  than  to  press  it 
into  dry  balls.  Set  it  in  the  coolest  part  of  the  cellar  or  spring 
house.  Take  it  out  into  a  deep  white  dish  and  very  carefully  dip  out 
and  lay  over  the  top  of  it  a  few  spoonfuls  of  thick  cream,  sweet  or 
sour ;  the  sour  is  preferable. 

Curds  and  Whev. — A  very  small  piece  of  rennet,  half  a  gallon 
of  milk.  Procure  from  the  butcher's  a  small  piece  of  rennet,,  which 
is  the  stomach  of  the  calf,  takea  as  soon  as  it  is  killed,  scoured,  and 


COOKERY    RECIPES,  54/ 

well  rubbed  with  salt,  and  stretched  on  sticks  to  dry.  Pour  some 
boiling  water  on  the  rennet,  and  let  it  remain  for  six  hours ;  then  use 
the  liquor  to  turn  the  milk.  The  milk  should  be  warm  and  fresh 
from  the  cow;  if  allowed  to  cool,  it  must  be  heated  till  it  is  of  a  de- 
gree quite  equal  to  new  milk ;  but  do  not  let  it  be  too  hot.  About  a 
tablespoonful,  or  rather  more,  would  be  sufficient  to  turn  the  above 
proportion  of  milk  into  curds  and  whey;  and,  whilst  the  milk  is 
turning,  let  it  be  kept  in  rather  a  warm  place.  It  takes  from  two  to 
three  hours  to  turn  the  milk. 

Cheese  Fritters. — Slice  thin  half  a  dozen  large  tart  apples,  and 
prepare  half  as  many  thin  slices  of  nice  cheese.  Beat  up  one  or  two 
eggs,  according  to  the  quantity  required,  and  season  high  with  salt, 
mustard  and  a  little  pepper.  Lay  the  slices  of  cheese  to  soak  for  a 
few  moments  in  the  mixture,  then  put  each  slice  between  two  slices 
of  apples,  sandwich  style,  and  dip  the  whole  into  the  eggs,  then  fry 
in  hot  butter  like  oysters,  and  serve  very  hot.  These  fritters  are  an 
addition  to  any  breakfast  table. 

Butter-Moulds. — Butter-moulds,  or  wooden  stamps  for  moulding 
fresh  butter,  are  much  used,  and  are  made  in  a  variety  of  forms  and 
shapes.  In  using  them,  let  them  be  kept  scrupulously  clean,  and, 
before  the  butter  is  pressed  in,  the  interior  should  be  well  wetted  with 
cold  water;  the  butter  must  then  be  pressed  in,  the  mould  opened,  and 
the  perfect  shape  taken  out.  The  butter  may  be  then  dished  and  gar- 
nished with  a  wreath  of  parsley — if  for  a  cheese  course.  If  for  break- 
fast, put  it  into  an  ornamental  butter-dish,  with  a  little  water  at  the 
bottom,  should  the  weather  be  very  warm. 

Rancid  Butter  made  Sweet. — To  one  quart  of  water  add  fifty- 
five  drops  of  the  chloride  of  lime;  then  wash  thoroughly  in  this  mix- 
ture five  pounds  of  rancid  butter.  It  must  remain  in  the  mixture  two 
hours.  Then  wash  twice  in  pure  water  and  once  in  sweet  milk ;  add 
salt.     This  preparation  of  lime  contains  nothing  injurious. 

To  Keep  and  Choose  Fresh  Butter. — Fresh  butter  should  be 
kept  in  a  dark,  cool  place,  and  in  as  large  a  mass  as  possible.  Mould 
as  much  only  as  is  required,  as  the  more  surface  is  exposed,  the  more 


548  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

liability  there  will  be  to  spoil ;  and  the  outside  very. soon  becomes 
rancid.  Fresh  butter  should  be  kept  covered  with  white  paper.  For 
small  larders,  butter-coolers  of  red  brick  are  now  very  much  used  for 
keeping  fresh  butter  in  warm  weather.  These  coolers  are  made  with 
a  large,  bell-shaped  cover,  into  the  top  of  which  a  little  cold  water 
should  be  poured,  and  in  summer  time  very  frequently  changed ;  and 
the  butter  must  be  kept  covered.  These  coolers  keep  butter  remark- 
ably firm  in  hot  weather,  and  are  extremely  convenient  for  those  whose 
larder  accommodation  is  limited.  In  choosing  fresh  butter,  remember 
it  should  smell  deliciously,  and  be  of  an  equal  color  all  through ;  if 
it  smells  sour  it  has  not  been  sufficiently  washed  from  the  buttermilk ; 
and  if  veiny  and  open  it  has  probably  been  worked  with  a  staler  or 
an  inferior  sort. 

Nothing  is  more  unsatisfactory  than  to  sit  down  day  after  day  to 
the  same  bill  of  fare.  There  are  houses  where  the  mistress  seems  to 
have  no  inventive  faculty,  acquired  or  innate.  Breakfast  consists 
from  Monday  till  Saturday  of  the  same  fried  pork  and  potatoes,  or 
.sausages  and  cakes.  Remnants  of  things  come  on  again  and  again, 
growing  small  by  degrees,  till  one  grows  very  tired  of  seeing  them. 
All  this  can  be  remedied  by  a  little  planning.  Manage  for  your  own 
family  as  if  you  had  guests,  and  vary  the  arrangement  of  your  table 
and  articles  of  your  diet.  Health  will  be  preserved  thus,  and  the 
dyspepsia  averted. 

A  Good  Dinner  is  perfect  food  perfectly  dressed ;  not  a  great 
array  of  dishes.  The  art  of  cooking  is  the  first  of  the  fine  arts.  The 
first  woman  in  America  is  not  she  who  bears  most  children — a  brutal 
Napoleonism — but  she  who  prepares  the  best  dish  ;  because,  by  this 
one  act,  this  superior  accomplishment,  she  contributes  to  the  health 
of  her  children  and  the  fidelity  of  her  husband. 

Hurried  Dinners. — It  is  a  mistake  to  eat  quickly.  Mastication 
performed  in  haste  must  be  imperfect  even  with  the  best  of  teeth, 
and  due  admixture  of  the  salivary  secretion  with  the  food  cannot 
take  place.  When  a  crude  mass  of  inadequately  crushed  muscular 
fibre,  or  undivided  solid  material  of  any  description,  is  thrown  into 


COOKERY    RECIPES.  549 

the  stomach,  it  acts  as  a  mechanical  irritant,  and  sets  up  a  condi- 
tion in  the  mucous  membrane  hning  that  organ  which  greatly  im- 
pedes, if  it  does  not  altogether  prevent,  the  process  of  digestion. 
When  the  practice  of  eating  quickly  and  filling  the  stomach  with 
unprepared  food  is  habitual,  the  digestive  organ  is  rendered  incap- 
able of  performing  its  proper  functions.  Either  a  much  larger  quan- 
tity of  food  than  .would  be  necessary  under  natural  conditions  is 
required,  or  the  system  suffers  from  lack  of  nourishment.  Those 
animals  which  were  intended  to  feed  hurriedly  were  either  gifted  with 
the  power  of  rumination  or  provided  with  gizzards.  Man  is  not 
so  furnished,  and  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  he  was  intended  to  eat 
slowly. 


MISCELLANEOUS  HOUSEHOLD  RECIPES. 

How  TO  Clean  Soapsuds. — Housekeepers  who  are  limited  in  their 
supply  of  good  washing  water  can  make  it  do  double  duty  by  dis- 
solving alum  in  hot  water  and  throwing  it  into  the  tub  of  soapsuds.  In 
a  moment  the  soap  will  curdle,  and,  accompanied  by  muddy  particles, 
will  sink  to  the  bottom,  leaving  the  water  perfectly  clear  and  devoid 
of  the  smell  of  soap.  This  water  can  be  used  for  washing  a  second 
time,  if  poured  off  the  sediment.  Where  water  is  scarce,  this  fact  is 
invaluable. 

To  Clean  a  Carpet. — Shake  and  beat  it  well,  tack  it  firmly  upon 
the  floor,  and  then  with  clean  flannel  wash  it  over  with  a  quart  of 
bullock's  gall  mixed  with  three  quarts  of  soft  cold  water,  and  rub  it 
off  with  a  clean  flannel  or  house-cloth. 

To  Clean  Knives  with  Expedition  and  Ease. — Make  a  strong 
solution  of  the  common  washing-soda  and  water;  after  wiping  them, 
dip  the  blades  of  the  knives  into  the  solution ;  then  polish  on  a  knife- 
board;  the  same  would,  of  course,  be  effectual  for  forks.  Never  put 
ivory-handled  knives  into  warm  water;  it  discolors  and  then  cracks 
them.  If  knives  are  wrapped  up  in  chamois  leather  they  will  never 
rust  unless  put  away  damp. 

To  Preserve  Herbs. — Suspend  them  in  a  dry,  airy  place,  with  the 
blossom  downward.  The  medicinal  ones,  when  dry,  should  be 
wrapped  in  paper,  and  kept  from  the  air. 

To  Clean  Glass. — Water-lime,  applied  with  a  soft,  dry  cloth,  will 
give  glass  a  nice  clear  cast. 

To  Remove  Paint-stains  from  Glass  Windows. — It  frequently 
happens  that  painters  splash  the  plate  or  other  glass  windows  when 
they  are  painting  the  sills.  When  this  is  the  case,  melt  some  soda 
(550) 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  55 1 

in  very  hot  water,  and  wash  them  with   it,  using  a  soft  flannel.     It 
will  entirely  remove  the  paint. 

To  Sweeten  Old  Lard. — Take  a  small  bunch  of  slippery-elm 
bark  and  put  it  in  the  lard,  and  cook  one  hour. 

To  Take  Marks  Off  of  Varnished  Furniture. — Wet  a  sponge 
in  common  alcohol  camphor,  and  apply  it  freely  to  the  furniture.  It 
has  nearly,  if  not  quite,  the  same  effect  that  varnish  has,  and  is  much 
cheaper. 

A  Teaspoonful  of  Borax  added  to  an  ordinary  kettle  of  hard 
water,  in  which  it  is  allowed  to  boil,  will  effectually  soften  the  water. 

Potatoes  cut  in  small  squares,  and  put  into  cruets  or  bottles  with 
the  water  that  is  to  wash  them,  will  clean  them  quickly  and  thor- 
oughly. 

Dishcloths  and  Iron-holders  should  be  made  neatly  and  kept 
clean.  The  former  is  best  made  of  worn  cotton  flannel.  Dishcloths 
should  never  be  used  about  the  stove  or  range,  and  iron-holders 
should  not  answer  for  stovecloths  even  on  ironing  day. 

Soap  would  not  be  required  in  washing  dishes  if  a  stone  jar  was 
kept  at  hand  filled  with  lye,  and  the  greasy  dishes  were  dipped  into 
it.  If  this  lye  becomes  greasy,  it  should  be  poured  into  the  tub  into 
which  all  bones  and  extra  grease  is  put,  and,  when  a  sufficient  quan- 
tity is  accumulated,  it  could  be  boiled  and  good  soap  be  made. 

Zinc  may  be  nicely  cleared  by  putting  soft  soap  on  it  with  a  cloth, 
and  rubbing  it  on  carefully.  After  remaining  on  a  few  minutes,  wash 
off,  and  the  zinc  looks  fresh  and  clean. 

A  Strong  Alum-water  is  sure  death  to  bugs  of  any  description. 
Take  two  pounds  of  pulverized  alum,  and  dissolve  in  three  quarts  of 
boiling  water,  allowing  it  to  remain  over  the  fire  until  thoroughly 
dissolved.  Apply  while  hot  with  a  brush,  or,  what  is  better,  use  a 
syringe  to  force  the  liquid  into  the  cracks  of  the  walls  and  bedstead. 
Scatter  powdered  alum  freely  in  all  the  places  they  have  appeared, 
and  the  house  will  soon  be  rid  of  insects  of  every  kind. 

Never  buy  cheap  tinware  ;  the  best  double  plate  will  last  a  life- 
time ;  the  cheapest  will  wear  out  in  a  year.  The  same  truth  applies 
equally  to  earthenware,  iron  and  woodenware. 


552  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

A  Mixture  of  Oil  and  Ink  is  a  good  thing  to  clean  kid  boots 
with  ;  the  first  softens  and  the  latter  blackens  them. 

What  Makes  a  Bushel. — A  bushel  is  a  bushel,  but  the  weight  of 
different  articles  varies  greatly;  for  instance,  a  bushel  of  corn,  shelled, 
weighs  fifty-eight  pounds;  rye,  fifty-six  pounds  ;  Irish  potatoes,  sixty 
pounds  ;  a  bushel  of  barley  weighs  forty-six  pounds ;  wheat,  sixty 
pounds ;  corn  on  the  cob,  seventy  pounds ;  buckwheat,  fifty-two 
pounds;  oats,  thirty-two  pounds;  sweet  potatoes,  fifty  pounds  ;  onions, 
fifty-seven  pounds  ;  beans,  sixty-two  pounds ;  bran,  twenty  pounds ; 
clover-seed,  forty-five  pounds ;  timothy-seed,  sixty  pounds ;  flax- 
seed, forty-five  pounds  ;  hemp-seed,  forty-five  pounds ;  blue  grass- 
seed,  fourteen  pounds;  dried  apples,  twenty-four  pounds;  dried 
peaches,  thirty-two  pounds. 

Household  Measures. — As  all  families  are  not  provided  with 
scales  and  weights,  referring  to  ingredients  in  general  use  by  every 
housewife,  the  following  information  may  be  useful :  Wheat  flour, 
one  quart,  is  one  pound;  Indian-meal,  one  quart  is  one  pound  ;  butter, 
when  soft,  one  quart  is  one  pound,  one  ounce;  loaf-sugar,  broken, 
one  quart  is  one  pound ;  best  brown  sugar,  one  quart  is  one  pound, 
two  ounces ;  eggs,  average  size,  ten  eggs  are  one  pound ;  sixteen 
large  tablespoonfuls  are  a  half-pint;  eight,  one  gill. 

Pillows  long  used  acquire  a  disagreeable  odor.  The  ticks  should 
be  emptied  and  washed,  the  feathers  put  into  a  bag  and  exposed  to 
the  heat  of  the  sun  for  several  hours. 

To  Keep  Seeds  from  the  Depredations  of  Mice,  mix  some 
pieces  of  camphor-gum  with  the  seeds.  Camphor  placed  in  trunks 
or  drawers  will  prevent  mice  from  doing. them  injury. 

Cockroaches  v/ill  flee  the  paint  which  has  been  washed  in  cool 
alum-water. 

Common  Bricks  may  be  made  fireproof  by  soaking  them  in  hot 
tar. 

Boiling-hot  Water  should  never  be  poured  upon  china;  it  cracks 
the  enamel. 

Benzole  and  common  clay  will  clean  marble. 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  553 

Grease  can  be  drawn  from  unpainted  kitchen  floors  by  putting 
plenty  of  soft  soap  on  the  spot  and  rubbing  a  hot  flat-iron  through 
the  soap.  One  appHcation  is  usually  sufficient ;  sometimes  another 
is  required,  washing  thoroughly  afterwards. 

Rubbing  Flat-irons  on  sand-paper  will  remove  every  bit  of  starch, 
and  render  them  very  smooth. 

To  Prevent  Moths  in  Carpets,  wash  the  floor,  before  laying 
them,  with  spirits  of  turpentine  or  benzine. 

To  Keep  Lemons  Fresh  place  them  in  a  jar  filled  with  water,  to 
be  renewed  every  day  or  two. 

Dry  Paint  can  be  softened  and  removed  by  an  application,  with  a 
swab,  of  a  strong  solution  of  oxalic  acid. 

To  Clean  Sea-Shells. — Fresh-water  shells  can  be  cleaned  by 
soaking  them  in  a  solution  of  chloride  of  lime  and  polishing  them 
with  pumice-stone. 

Keeping  Meat  Fresh  in  Hot  Weather. — Place  it  in  a  clean 
porcelain  bowl,  and  pour  very  hot  water  over  it  so  as  to  cover  it ; 
then  pour  oil  on  the  water.  The  air  is  thus  excluded  and  the  meat 
is  preserved. 

To  Make  Hens  Lay  in  Winter. — Keep  them  warm,  and  give 
them  daily  fresh  meat;  do  not  feed  them  corn  in  the  usual  manner, 
but  keep  it  by  them  constantly. 

Cheap  Soft  Soap. — Take  a  clean  barrel,  the  size  of  a  kerosene-oil 
barrel,  and  in  the  bottom  place  ten  or  fifteen  pounds  of  barrel-potash, 
and  fifteen  pounds  of  rendered  fat  or  tallow.  Upon  this  pour  three  pail- 
fuls  of  boiling  hot  water  (soft  water).  Let  it  stand  twenty-four  hours, 
and  add  two  pailfuls  of  boiling  soft  water,  and  continue  to  add  a  like 
amount  once  a  day  till  the  barrel  is  full.    Stir  it  often  to  make  it  white. 

Soft  Soap  [excellent  recipe). — To  one  pound  of  concentrated  lye 
add  three  gallons  of  water  and  four  pounds  of  fat;  put  them  in  a  tin 
boiler  and  boil  five  hours ;  then  add  twelve  gallons  of  water  and  boil 
the  whole  a  few  minutes.  Let  it  stand  till  cold  and  it  is  ready  for 
use. 

To  Make  Hard  Soap. — Of  course,  the  whiter  the  grease,  the 


554  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

nicer  the  soap.  Take  six  pounds  of  sal-soda,  six  pounds  of  grease, 
three  and  a-half  pounds  of  new-stone  lime,  four  gallons  of  soft  water, 
and  half  a  pound  of  borax.  Put  soda,  lime  and  water  into  an  iron 
boiler,  and  boil  till  all  is  dissolved.  When  well  settled,  pour  off  the 
clear  lye,  wash  out  the  kettle  and  put  in  the  lye,  grease  and  borax; 
boil  till  it  comes  to  soap ;  pour  into  a  tub  to  cool,  and,  when  hard, 
cut  into  bars  and  put  on  boards  to  dry. 

Easter  Eggs. — Save  egg  shells  for  moulds,  break  the  small  end  of 
the  shell  carefully  with  some  sharp  instrument  and  allow  the  egg  to 
run  out.  Make  a  stiff  cornstarch  blanc-mange  ;  after  placing  the 
shells  in  a  pan  of  salt  so  that  they  will  stand,  fill  them  and  set  them 
away;  when  cold  and  firm  remove  the  shells  and  you  will  have  per- 
fect eggs.  To  make  colored  ones,  stir  in  jelly  of  any  kind  while  the 
blanc-mange  is  hot,  or  make  chocolate  blanc-mange. 

ODDS  AND  ENDS  FOR  HOUSEHOLD  USE. 

If  brooms  are  wet  in  boiling  suds  once  a  week  they  will  become 
very  tough,  will  not  cut  out  a  carpet,  but  last  much  longer,  and 
always  sweep  like  a  new  broom — clean.  A  handful  or  two  of 
damp  salt  sprinkled  on  the  carpet,  will  attract  and  absorb  the  dust, 
and  carry  it  along  with  it,  and  make  the  carpet  look  fresh  as  new. 
Wet  corn-meal  is  also  excellent  and  serves  the  same  purpose.  So 
do  damp  cabbage-leaves  cut  up  small,  if  no  other  means  are  at 
hand.  Snow  used  in  the  same  way  in  a  cold  room  also  improves 
the  carpet.  The  broom  wears  out  carpets  quite  as  much  as  feet 
do.  A  very  dusty  carpet  may  be  cleaned  by  setting  a  pail  of  cold 
water  outside  the  door,  wet  the  broom  in  it,  knock  it  to  get  off  all 
the  drops,  sweep  a  yard  or  so,  then  wash  the  broom  and  sweep 
again,  so  on  till  the  whole  is  done.  It  is  surprising  how  much  dirt 
will  be  found  in  the  water,  which  should  be  changed  three  or  four 
times  if  the  carpet  is  very  soiled.  Another  good  way  to  clean  car- 
pets is  to  add  two  large  spoonfuls  of  ammonia  to  one  gallon  of  cold 
water,  ring  out  Canton  flannel  cloths  in  this  mixture,  and  rub  the 
carpet  with  the  damp  cloth.  See  the  cloth  is  not  too  wet,  and  dry 
o,ff  the  carpet  with  a  dry  cloth. 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  555 

Tea-leaves,  or  any  kind  of  leaves,  or  bran,  scattered  over  the  floor 
will  keep  the  dust  down. 

Never  use  a  broom  for  any  other  purpose  that  you  use  upon  a 
carpet. 

Old  papers  are  excellent  to  put  the  polish  on  tin-ware,  cutlery, 
silver  spoons,  and  to  renew  the  polish  of  stoves  and  ranges  that  are 
strangers  to  the  "  Rising  Sun  "  polish  or  any  other.  Nothing,  not 
even  chamois  skin,  is  as  good  as  newspaper  for  polishing  mirrors 
after  they  have  been  first  wiped  off  with  a  cloth  wrung  out  of  strong 
suds.  The  same  may  be  said  of  window-glass.  Benzine  and  com- 
mon clay  will  clean  marble.  Strong  soda-water,  if  left  to  remain 
half  an  hour  on  the  spots,  will  generally  remove  them. 

To  clean  steel  or  iron,  make  a  paste  of  two  ounces  soft  soap,  and 
two  of  coarse  emery  powder  and  two  of  fine,  apply;  allow  to  remain 
a  while,  then  rub  off  with  wash-leather.  For  polishing  steel,  crocus 
powder,  moistened  with  sweet-oil,  is  best.  "An  ounce  of  prevention 
is  worth  a  pound  of  cure,"  and  if  steel  fire-sets  and  any  steel  articles 
that  are  to  be  put  away  for  the  season  are  well  rubbed  in  sweet-oil, 
and  done  up  in  soft  brown  paper,  they  will  keep  free  from  rust.  To 
clean  paint  there  is  nothing  more  labor-saving  than  common  whiting. 
Use  a  flannel  cloth,  clean  warm  water;  squeeze  the  cloth  nearly  dry; 
then  take  as  much  whiting  as  will  adhere  to  it,  rub  the  paint,  then 
wash  off  with  clean  water,  dry  with  a  chamois.  Paint  thus  cleaned 
looks  as  well  as  when  first  laid  on,  without  any  injury  to  the  most 
delicate  colors.  It  is  far  better  than  using  soap,  and  does  not  require 
half  the  time  or  labor.  Gray  marble  hearths  may  be  rubbed  with 
linseed-oil,  and  no  spots  will  show.  Kerosene  and  powdered  lime, 
whiting  or  wood-ashes  will  scour  tins  with  the  least  labor.  Wooden 
bowls  oj  trays  if  well  rubbed,  inside  and  out  with  lard  or  any  clear 
grease,  before  ever  using,  will  never  crack. 

Camphor  placed  in  drawers  or  trunks  will  prevent  mice  from 
doing  them  any  injury. 

Offensive  cistern-water  may  be  purified  by  sinking  a  bag  of  pow- 
dered charcoal  in  it. 


556  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

To  purify  a  pitcher  of  water,  attach  a  plum-sized  lump  of  alum  to 
a  string  and  swing  slowly  around  in  it  for  a  few  times  and  all  the 
sediment  will  soon  fall  to  the  bottom.- 

The  ivory  keys  to  a  piano  which  have  become  yellow,  may  be 
made  white  again  by  washing  them  with  a  sponge  diluted  with  sul- 
phurous acid,  or  a  solution  of  hyposulphate  of  soda,  and  then  expose 
the  keys  to  the  sun. 

To  remove  the  white  spots  which  often  seriously  injure  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  dining  or  other  table,  pour  some  lamp-oil  on  the  spot 
and  rub  it  hard  with  a  soft  cloth;  then  pour  on  a  little  cologne  and 
rub  it  dry  with  another  cloth. 

Varnished  paints,  window-panes  and  mirrors,  can  be  much  better 
washed  with  the  liquid  saved  from  tea-leaves  than  with  water.  Save 
the  tea-leaves  for  a  few  days,  then  steep  them  in  a  tin-pail  or  pan  for 
half  an  hour,  strain  through  a  sieve,  and  the  liquid  will  be  found  to 
be  excellent  for  the  purpose  named.  It  acts  as  a  strong  detergent, 
cleansing  the  paint  from  all  its  impurities  and  making  the  varnish 
equal  to  new.  It  will  not  do  to  wash  unvarnished  paint  with  it  as  it 
would  take  the  paint  off. 

To  remove  grease  from  carpets,  cover  the  grease  spot  with  whiting, 
and  let  it  remain  until  it  becomes  saturated  with  grease;  then  scrape 
it  off,  and  cover  with  another  coat  of  whiting,  and  if  it  does  not  re- 
move the  grease,  repeat  the  application.  Three  coats  of  whiting  will, 
in  most  cases,  remove  the  grease,  when  it  should  be  brushed  off  with 
a  clothes-brush. 

A  strong  solution  of  carbolic  acid  and  water  poured  into  holes, 
kills  all  the  ants  it  touches,  and  the  survivors  immediately  take 
themselves  off. 

When  washing  oil-cloths,  put  a  little  milk  in  the  last  -^j^'ater  they 
are  washed  with.  This  will  keep  them  bright  and  clean  longer  than 
clear  water. 

Grained  wood  should  be  washed  with  cold  tea. 

Ceilings  that  have  been  smoked  by  a  kerosene-lamp  should  be 
washed  off  with  soda-water. 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  557 

Moths  will  eat  the  all-wool  reps,  but  not  the  mixed  silk  and  cot- 
ton upholstering. 

To  polish  brass,  rub  the  metal  with  rotten-stone  and  sweet-oil, 
then  rub  off  with  a  piece  of  cotton-flannel,  and  polish  with  soft 
leather.  A  solution  of  oxalic  acid  removes  the  tarnish,  rendering 
the  metal  bright.  The  acid  must  be  washed  off  with  water,  and  the 
brass  rubbed  with  whiting  and  soft  leather.  A  mixture  of  muriatic 
acid  and  alum  dissolved  in  water,  imparts  a  golden  color  to  brass 
articles  that  are  steeped  in  it  for  a  few  days. 

The  government  recipe  for  cleaning  brass,  used  in  the  arsenals,  is 
said  to  be  as  follows:  Make  a  mixture  of  one  part  common  nitric 
acid,  and  one-half  part  sulphuric  acid  in  a  stone  jar;  then  place  ready 
a  pail  of  fresh  water  and  a  box  of  sawdust.  Dip  the  articles  to  be 
cleaned  in  the  acid,  then  remove  them  into  the  water,  after  which 
rub  them  with  sawdust.  This  immediately  changes  them  to  a  bril- 
liant color.  If  the  brass  is  greasy  it  must  be  first  dipped  in  a  strong 
solution  of  potash  and  soda  in  warm  water,  this  cuts  the  grease  so 
that  the  acid  has  the  power  to  act. 

Rusted  steel  can  be  cleaned  by  washing  with  a  solution  of  half  an 
ounce  of  cyanide  of  potassium  in  two  ounces  of  water,  and  then 
brushing  with  a  paste  composed  of  half  an  ounce  of  cyanide  of  potas- 
sium, half  an  ounce  of  castile  soap,  an  ounce  of  whiting  and  suffi- 
cient water  to  make  the  paste. 

A  little  spirits  of  turpentine  added  to  the  water  with  which  floors 
are  washed  will  prevent  the  ravages  of  moths. 

Salt  and  water  is  an  excellent  thing  to  clean  cane-seated  chairs. 
Use  a  great  deal,  so  that  the  cane  will  be  thoroughly  saturated,  and 
scrub  with  a  brush  if  the  seat  is  much  soiled.  Turn  the  chair  upside 
down,  to  get  at  the  unvarnished  side  of  the  cane,  as  the  varnish  will 
resist  water.  The  object  of  soaking  it  is  to  shrink  the  cane.  Wipe 
it  and  stand  the  chair  in  the  sun  to  dry,  and  the  seat  will  tighten  up 
and  be  as  firm  as  when  bought,  unless  some  of  the  strands  are 
broken. 

A  good  poison  for  house-flies  may  be  made  by  boiling  quassia 
35 


558  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

chips  in  water,  making  a  very  strong-  decoction,  and  then  sweetening 
the  Hquid  with  treacle  or  sugar.  This  fly-poison  may  be  used  with 
safety,  as  it  is  not  injurious  to  human  beings. 

Marble  of  any  kind  may  be  repolished  by  rubbing  it  with  a  linen 
cloth,  dressed  with  oxide  of  tin  (sold  under  the  name  of  putty-pow- 
der). For  this  purpose  a  couple  or  more  folds  of  linen  should  be  fas- 
tened tight  over  a  piece  of  wood,  flat  or  otherwise,  according  to  the 
form  of  the  stone.  To  repolish  first  a  mantelpiece,  it  should  be  per- 
fectly cleaned.  This  is  best  done  by  making  a  paste  of  lime,  soda  and 
water,  wetting  well  the  marble,  and  applying  the  paste.  Then  let  it 
remain  for  a  day  or  so,  keeping  it  moist  during  the  interval.  When 
this  paste  has  been  removed,  the  polishing^  may  begin.  Chips  in  the 
marble  should  be  rubbed  out  first  with  emery  and  water.  At  every 
stage  of  polishing,  the  linen  and  putty- powder  must  be  kept  constantly 
wet. 

It  is  a  common  household  experience  to  find  the  caps  of  glass  cans 
of  fruit  so  firmly  screwed  on  that  they  cannot  be  removed  by  the  hand. 
A  cloth  dipped  in  hot  water  and  applied  to  the  outside  of  the  cap  will 
cause  it  to  expand,  when  it  will  come  off  without  effort. 

When  boots  and  shoes  not  in  use  are  deposited  in  a  damp  place 
they  become  covered  ordinarily  with  mould,  which  attacks  the  leather ; 
when  deposited  in  a  dry  place  they  become  hard  and  wrinkled — a  fact 
well  known  to  all,  although  the  remedy  may  not  be.  This  double 
disadvantage  may  be  avoided  if  the  articles  are  first  rubbed  with  a 
rag  on  which  a  few  drops  of  oil  of  turpentine  have  been  sprinkled. 
The  oil  of  turpentine  acts  favorably  as  a  preservative  to  the  leather, 
and  is  a  deterrent  to  rats  and  mice,  whose  depredations  are  often  as 
injurious  as  those  of  temperature. 

Fly  spots  can  be  removed  with  a  camel's-hair  brush  dipped  into 
spirits  of  wine,  and  thus  applied  to  the  spots. 

In  cleaning  furniture,  rub  the  surface  with  a  wet  cloth  to  wipe  off 
the  grease,  with  a  small  piece  of  washing-soda  in  the  water ;  dry 
it;  then  rub  it  with  raw  linseed  oil;  then  rub  with  gum-shellac 
(which  is  sold  at  the  paint-shops);  then  rub  with  an  old  silk  kerchief. 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  559 

Dusting  articles  of  steel,  after  they  have  been  thoroughly  cleaned, 
with  unslaked  lime  will  preserve  them  from  rust.  The  coils  of  piano- 
wire  thus  sprinkled  will  keep  from  rust  many  years. 

To  whiten  walls,  scrape  off  all  the  old  whitewash,  and  v/ash  the 
walls  with  a  solution  of  two  ounces  of  white  vitriol  to  four  gallons  of 
water.  Soak  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  white  glue  in  water  for  twelve 
hours ;  strain  and  place  in  a  tin  pail ;  cover  with  fresh  water,  and  set 
the  pail  in  a  kettle  of  boiling  water.  When  melted  stir  in  the  glue 
eight  pounds  of  whiting,  and  water  enough  to  make  it  as  thick  as 
common  whitewash.  Apply  evenly  with  a  good  brush.  If  the  walls 
are  very  yellow,  blue  the  water  slightly  by  squeezing  in  it  a  flannel 
blue-bag. 

Whiting  wet  with  aqua  ammonia  will  cleanse  brass  from  stains, 
and  is  excellent  for  polishing  taps  and  door  knobs  of  brass  or  silver. 

Soot  falling  on  the  carpet  from  open  chimneys  or  carelessly  han- 
dled stove-papers,  if  covered  thickly  with  salt,  can  be  brushed  up 
without  injury  to  the  carpet. 

If  you  have  a  brass  tea  kettle  it  is  all  the  rage  now  to  bring  it  in  to 
the  table  while  you  make  the  afternoon  tea,  and  it  must  be  polished 
so  that  it  shines  like  gold.  Buy  five  cents'  worth  of  oxalic  acid,  put 
it  in  an  ordinary  wine  bottle,  and  fill  up  with  cold  water;  when  dis- 
solved, rub  the  kettle  with  a  cloth  dipped  in  the  solution.  Elbow- 
grease  is  the  only  other  necessity,  and  if  plenty  of  it  is  used,  the  result 
will  be  wonderful.  The  kettle  must  be  perfectly  cold  while  cleaning. 
An  objection  to  this  method  of  scouring  is  that  if  the  oxalic  acid  is 
brought  into  immediate  contact  with  the  hands  and  nails,  it  produces 
an  injurious  effect  on  them,  which  is  certainly  undesirable.  Care 
should  therefore  be  taken  that  the  scouring  cloth  be  large  enough  to 
prevent  such  results.  A  preparation,  that  requires  a  little  more  labor 
but  is  equally  efficacious,  consists  of  a  teaspoonful  of  salt  dissolved  in 
vinegar  and  applied  in  the  same  way  as  the  other.  Do  not  leave  it 
where  little  fingers  can  get  it,  for  the  preparation  (the  acid)  is  rank 
poison. 

Tar  may  be  instantaneously  removed  from  the  hand  and  fingers  by 


560  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

rubbing  with  the  outside  of  fresh  lemon  or  orange  peel,  and  wiping 
dry  immediately  after. 

To  restore  old  ivory  to  its  original  color  without  danger  of  crack- 
ing it  is  to  cover  it  with  glass  and  expose  it  to  the  rays  of  the  sun. 

Hartshorn  is  one  of  the  best  possible  ingredients  for  plate-powder 
in  daily  use.  It  leaves  on  the  silver  a  deep,  dark  polish,  and  is  less 
hurtful  than  any  other  article.  To  wash  plate  carefully  is  first  to 
remove  all  the  grease  from  it,  and  this  can  be  done  with  the  use  of 
warm  water  and  soap.  The  water  should  be  as  nearly  hot  as  the 
hand  can  bear  it.  Then  mix  as  much  hartshorn-powder  as  will  be 
required  into  a  thick  paste  with  cold  water.  Smear  this  lightly  over 
the  plate  with  a  piece  of  soft  rag,  and  leave  it  for  some  little  time  to 
dry.  When  perfectly  dry,  brush  it  off  quite  clean  with  a  soft  plate- 
brush,  and  polish  the  plate  with  a  dry  leather.  If  the  plate  be  very 
dirty  or  much  tarnished,  spirits  of  wine  will  be  found  to  answer  bet- 
ter than  the  water  for  mixing  the  paste. 

For  plate  rags  nothing  is  better  than  the  tops  of  old  cotton  stock- 
ings, and  these  should  be  boiled  in  a  mixture  of  new  milk  and  harts- 
horn-powder for  about  five  minutes,  rinsing  them  as  soon  as  they  are 
taken  out  for  a  moment  in  cold  water,  and  dry  them  before  the  fire. 
With  these  rags  rub  the  plate  briskly  as  soon  as  it  has  been  well 
washed  and  dried  after  daily  use.  A  most  beautiful,  deep  polish  will 
be  produced,  and  the  plate  will  require  nothing  more  than  merely  to 
be  dusted  with  a  leather  or  dry,  soft  cloth  before  it  is  again  put  upon 
the  table. 

In  cleaning  decanters,  roll  up  in  small  pieces  some  soft  brown  or 
blotting-paper;  wet  them,  and  soap  them  well.  Put  them  into  the 
decanters  about  one-quarter  full  of  warm  water;  shake  them  well  for 
a  few  minutes,  then  rinse  with  clear,  cold  water;  wipe  the  outsides 
with  a  nice  dry  cloth,  put  the  decanters  to  drain,  and  when  diy,  they 
will  be  almost  as  bright  as  new  ones. 

Broken  glass  may  be  repaired  by  joming  the  pieces  very  neatly 
together  with  a  cement  made  as  follows :  Dissolve  an  ounce  of  gum- 
mastic  in  a  quantity  of  highly  rectified  spirits  of  wine;  then  soften  an 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  56 1 

ounce  of  isinglass  in  warm  water,  and,  finally,  dissolve  it  in  brandy 
till  it  forms  a  thick  jelly;  mix  the  isinglass  and  gum-mastic  together, 
adding  a  quarter  of  an  ounce  of  finely  powdered  gum-ammoniac; 
put  the  whole  into  an  earthen  pipkin,  and  in  a  warm  place,  till  they 
are  thoroughly  incorporated  together;  pour  it  into  a  small  vial,  and 
cork  it  down  for  use.  In  using  it  dissolve  a  small  piece  of  the 
cement  in  a  silver  teaspoon  over  a  lighted  candle.  The  broken 
pieces  of  glass  or  china  being  warmed  and  touched  with  the  now 
liquid  cement,  join  the  parts  neatly  together  and  hold  in  their  places 
till  the  cement  has  set;  then  wipe  away  the  cement  adhering  to  the 
edge  of  the  joint,  and  leave  it  for  twelve  hours  without  touching  it; 
the  joint  will  be  as  strong  as  the  china  itself,  and  if  neatly  done  it 
will  show  no  joining. 

It  may  be  of  some  value  to  housekeepers  who  have  marble-top 
furniture  to  know  that  the  common  solution  of  gum-arabic  is  an  ex- 
cellent absorbent,  and  will  remove  dirt,  etc.,  from  marble. 

The  method  of  applying  it  is  as  follows:  Brush  the  dust  off  the 
piece  to  be  cleaned,  then  apply  with  a  brush  a  good  coat  of  gum- 
arabic,  about  the  consistency  of  thick  office  mucilage,  expose  it  to 
the  sun  or  dry  wind,  or  both.  In  a  short  time  it  will  crack  and  peel 
off  If  all  the  gum  should  not  peel  off,  wash  it  with  clean  water  and 
a  clean  cloth.  Of  course,  if  the  first  application  does  not  have  the 
desired  effect  it  should  be  applied  again.  Another  method  of  clean- 
ing marble  is  to  make  a  paste  with  soft  soap  and  whiting,  wash  the 
marble  with  it  and  then  leave  a  coat  of  paste  upon  it  for  two  or  three 
days.     Afterwards  wash  off  with  warm  (not  hot)  water  and  soap. 

To  soften  resin,  melt  the  resin,  and  while  in  a  state  of  fusion  add 
tar.  The  proper  degree  of  hardness  can  be  ascertained  by  dropping 
a  small  portion  of  the  melted  mass  into  water. 

To  render  pencil  mai'ks  indelible,  take  well-skimmed  milk,  and 
dilute  with  an  equal  bulk  of  water.  Wash  the  pencil  marks,  whether 
writing  or  drawing,  with  this  liquid,  using  a  soft  flat  camel-hair 
brush,  and  avoid  all  rubbing.     Place  upon  a  flat  board  to  dry. 

To  remove  grease   from   marble,  take   French  chalk  reduced  to 


562  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

powder,  dust  it  over  the  spot,  and  then  hold  a  hot  flat-iron  very  near 
to  it.     This  will  soften  the  grease,  while  the  chalk  will  absorb  it. 

A  few  drops  of  oil  of  cloves,  alcohol,  or  acid  will  preserve  a  quart 
of  the  mucilage  gum-arabic  or  gum-tragacanth  from  turning  sour. 
A  small  quantity  of  dissolved  alum  will  preserve  flour  paste. 

Use  kerosene,  or  bath-brick,  or  powdered  lime  to  scour  iron,  tin 
or  copper;  wash  in  hot  suds  and  polish  with  dry  whiting. 

For  silvering  glass  globes,  etc.  To  half  an  ounce  of  lead  add  half 
an  ounce  of  fine  tin,  and  melt  them  together  in  an  iron  ladle;  when  in 
a  state  of  fusion,  add  Jialf  an  ounce  of  bismuth,  skim  off  the  dross,  re- 
move the  ladle  from  the  fire,  and  before  it  solidifies  add  five  ounces 
of  quicksilver,  and  stir  the  whole  well  together,  being  careful  not  to 
breathe  over  it,  as  the  fumes  of  the  quicksilver  are  very  injurious. 
The  operation  should  be  performed  under  a  hood  communicating 
with  a  chimney  of  good  draft,  to  carry  off  the  vapors.  Or,  to  four 
ounces  of  quicksilver  put  as  much  tin-foil  as  will  become  barely 
fluid  when  mixed.  Have  the  globe  clean,  dry  and  warm,  and  inject 
the  metal  by  means  of  a  clean  glass  or  earthen  pipe  at  the  aperture, 
turning  it  about  until  it  is  silvered  all  over;  let  the  remainder  run  out, 
and  the  operation  is  finished. 

CEMENTS,  PASTES,  ETC. 

The  strongest  known  glue  is  that  made  from  the  skins  and  sounds 
of  fishes,  and  the  strongest  of  this  class  is  made  in  Lapland  from  the 
skin  of  a  perch.  The  Laplanders  use  it  in  making  their  bows,  which 
are  both  strong  and  durable.  In  making  it  their  cold  climate  is 
greatly  in  their  favor;  here  a  fishskin  will  begin  to  undergo  decom- 
position before  it  can  be  dried. 

In  making  it  the  skins  are  put  into  a  bladder,  which  answers  for  a 
water  bath,  and  heated  in  water  until  a  sort  of  glue  results.  This 
glue  is,  as  may  be  imagined,  very  elastic.  Isinglass  is  a  very  strong 
glue,  made  from  skins,  sounds,  etc.,  of  fishes ;  it  is  very  liable  to  be 
spoiled  in  making  by  overheating. 

The  pastes  are  all  made  from  starch  in  some  of  its  forms.     Gluten 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  563 

is  also  used  for  a  paste,  but  starch  is  the  best.  All  additions  of  resin, 
etc.,  commonly  recommended  are  a  damage  to  paste. 

Dextrine,  or  "  British  gum,"  is  of  immense  value  in  the  arts  as  a 
cement.  It  is  derived  from  starch  by  roasting  or  by  the  action  of 
nitric  acid.  It  was  discovered  by  accidental  overheating  of  starch, 
and  its  process  of  manufacture  was  for  a  long  time  kept  secret.  Its 
chief  use  for  a  long  time  was  in  the  cotton  manufacture.  It  is  the 
standard  gum  for  postage  stamps,  though  it  is  said  that  gum  arable 
and  cheaper  substitutes  are  used  in  this  country. 

No  cement  can  be  fireproof  which  contains  organic  matter,  since 
this  is  decomposed  at  a  temperature  about  that  of  melting  lead,  or  say, 
600°  Fahrenheit.     Cements  containing  oils  will  not  be  fireproof 

Silicate  of  soda  mixed  with  asbestos  is  the  nearest  to  a  fire-proof 
cement.  It  will  stand  a  low,  red  heat.  It  is  decomposed  at  a  bright 
red. 

Cement  cracks  when  it  is  made  up  with  too  much  water.  It  then 
forms  a  vitreous  crust,  and  is  not  homogeneous  throughout  its  mass. 
By  adding  finely  crushed  granite  fragments  to  cement  without  sand,  a 
material  is  obtained  that  has  great  hardness,  and  which  is  susceptible 
of  taking  a  high  polish. 

A  paste  made  of  whiting  and  benzine  will  clean  marble,  and  one 
made  of  whiting  and  chloride  of  soda  spread  and  left  to  dry  (in  the 
sun  if  possible)  on  the  marble  will  remove  spots. 

Cement  for  Labels. — i.  Macerate  five  parts  of  glue  in  eighteen 
parts  of  water.  Boil  and  add  nine  parts  rock  candy  and  five  parts 
gum  arable.  2.  Mix  dextrine  with  water  and  add  a  drop^or  two  of 
glycerine.  3.  A  mixture  of  one  part  of  dry  chloride  of  calcium,  or 
two  parts  of  the  same  salt  in  the  crystallized  form,  and  thirty-six  parts 
of  gum  arable,  dissolved  in  water  to  a  proper  consistency,  form  a 
mucilage  which  holds  well,  does  not  crack  by  drying,  and  yet  does 
not  attract  sufficient  moisture  from  the  air  to  become  wet  in  damp 
weather.  4.  For  attaching  labels  to  tin  and  other  bright  metallic  sur- 
faces, first  rub  the  surface  with  a  mixture  of  muriatic  acid  and  alco- 
hol ;  then  apply  the  label  with  a  very  thin  coating  of  the  paste,  and  it 


564  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home, 

will  adhere  almost  as  well  as  on  glass.  5.  To  make  cement  for  at- 
taching labels  to  metals,  take  ten  parts  tragacanth  mucilage,  ten  parts 
of  honey  and  one  part  flour.  The  flour  appears  to  hasten  the  drying 
and  renders  it  less  susceptible  to  damp.  Another  cement  that  will 
resist  the  damp  still  better,  but  will  not  adhere  if  the  surface  is  greasy, 
is  made  by  boiling  together  two  parts  shellac,  one  part  borax  and  six- 
teen parts  water. 

Cement  for  Jars  and  Bottles. — Use  one-fourth  beeswax  and 
three-fourths  resin,  melted  together. 

Mucilage  of  Gum  Arabic. — Gum  arabic,  twelve  troy  ounces; 
glycerine,  eight  fluid  ounces ;  water,  sixteen  ounces. 

To  Cement  Wood  to  Glass. — Make  a  solution  of  isinglass  in 
acetic  acid  so  thick  as  to  be  solid  when  cold.  Heat  this  and  apply  it. 
It  will  adhere  firmly,  uniting  both  materials  equally. 

Rubber  Cement. — A  cement  of  this  kind,  that  is  recommended  as 
being  economical  and  excellent,  is  made  by  cutting  a  quantity  of  pure 
India-rubber,  in  its  natural  state,  into  small  pieces,  putting  them  in  a 
wide-mouthed  bottle,  and  filling  it  about  half-full  of  the  purest  ben- 
zine; the  rubber  will  swell  up  almost  immediately,  and,  if  well 
shaken,  will,  in  a  few  days,  assume  the  consistency  of  honey.  If  the 
rubber  does  not  dissolve,  add  more  benzine.  If,  when  dissolved,  the 
cement  is  too  thin,  add  more  gum.  A  piece  of  rubber  one  inch  in 
diameter  will  make  a  pint  of  cement.  This  dries  in  a  few  minutes, 
and  is  very  useful  in  uniting  pieces  of  leather,  as  it  is  both  elastic  and 
durable. 

Cement  for  Leather  and  Cloth. — An  adhesive  material  for 
uniting  the  parts  of  boots  and  shoes,  and  for  the  seams  of  articles  of 
clothing,  may  be  made  thus  :  Take  one  pound  of  gutta  percha,  four 
ounces  of  India-rubber,  two  ounces  of  pitch,  one  ounce  of  shellac,  two 
ounces  of  oil.  The  ingredients  are  to  be  melted  together  and  used 
hot. 

Strong  Glue  can  be  made  by  adding  powdered  chalk  to  common 
glue. 

For  Crockery. — A  good  cement  for  mending  broken  crockery- 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  565 

ware  may  be  made  by  mixing  together  equal  quantities  of  melted 
glue,  white  of  egg  and  white  lead,  and  boiling  them  together. 

To  Obtain  Paste  for  Paper. — To  ten  parts  by  weight  of  gum 
arabic  add  three  parts  of  sugar  in  order  to  prevent  the  gum  from 
cracking ;  then  add  water  until  the  desired  consistency  is  obtained. 
If  a  very  strong  paste  is  required,  add  a  quantity  of  flour  equal  in 
weight  to  the  gum,  without  boiling  the  mixture.  The  paste  improves 
in  strength  when  it  begins  to  ferment. 

For  Paper. — The  best  paste  for  attaching  paper  is  made  by  mixing 
a  small  quantity  of  water  and  flour  together,  stirring  it  well  until  all 
the  lumps  are  dissolved,  and  then  set  it  away  to  cool.  In  pasting 
slips  in  scrap-books,  it  is  recommended  as  the  only  kind  of  paste  that 
does  not  draw  the  sheets  when  dry. 

Rye  flour,  boiled  in  water,  with  a  little  alum  added  while  boiling, 
makes  an  adhesive  paste  almost  as  strong  as  glue. 

China  and  Glass  Cement. — To  one  pint  of  milk  add  one  pint  of 
vinegar;  separate  the  curds  from  the  whey,  and  mix  the  whey  with 
the  whites  of  five  eggs ;  beat  it  well  together,  sifting  into  it  a  suffi- 
cient quantity  of  quick  lime  to  convert  it  into  a  thick  paste.  Broken 
china  or  glass  mended  with  this  cement  will  not  again  separate,  and 
will  resist  the  action  of  fire  and  water. 

Milk  Cement. — It  may  not  be  well  known  that  new  milk  makes  a 
good  cement  for  broken  crockery.  One  good  method  of  using  it  is  to 
snugly  tie  together  the  different  parts  and  lay  in  the  pail  while  milking. 
After  thoroughly  drying,  the  pieces  will  be  found  to  be  firmly  united, 
and  will  remain  together  a  long  time  if  not  soaked.  Another  way  is 
to  take  warm,  fresh  milk  and  turn  into  a  basin  over  the  fire  ;  into  this 
lay  any  dish  or  toy,  firmly  tied  together  with  thread  or  twine.  Heat 
until  scalding  hot,  remove  and  dry. 

Common  Cement,  such  as  is  used  for  plastering  cisterns,  cellars, 
etc.,  is  excellent  for  scouring  knives,  forks,  spoons  and  tinware. 

Cement  for  an  Aquarium  that  will  not  Crack  or  Peel  from 
Glass  or  Galvanized  Iron. — Take  by  measure,  ten  parts  of  litharge, 
ten  parts  of  plaster  of  Paris,  ten  parts  of  fine  dry  white  sand,  and  one 


566  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

part  finely  powdered  resin.     When  wanted  for  use,  mix  into  a  stiff 
putty  with  boiled  linseed  oil.     Do  not  use  the  tank  for  three  or  four 
•days  after  cemented. 

HINTS   TO    HOUSEKEEPERS. 

It  is  a  good  plan  for  a  housekeeper  to  make  a  weekly  visit  to 
every  part  of  her  dwelling  from  garret  to  cellar. 

To  take  Grease  from  Boards. — Put  over  the  grease  a  thick  paste 
of  fuller's-earth,  leave  it  on  for  some  hours,  wash  off  with  hot  water, 
put  fresh  fuller's-earth  if  the  grease  is  not  sufficiently  absorbed,  scrub 
after  v/ith  silver-sand.  Never  use  soap  to  boards  if  you  desire  to 
keep  them  looking  well. 

It  is  said  two  parts  tallow  and  one  of  resin,  melted  together  and 
applied  to  the  soles  of  new  boots  or  shoes,  as  much  as  the  leather 
will  absorb,  will  double  their  wear. 

The  detergent  properties  of  water-glass  make  it  an  excellent 
scouring  material,  and  it  enters  largely  into  the  composition  of  most 
common  soaps. 

Bed-bugs  cannot  hold  out,  if  their  haunts  are  treated  occasionally 
to  an  application  of  corrosive  sublimate,  ten  cents  worth  put  in  a  pint 
of  alcohol  or  spirits  of  turpentine.  Apply  with  a  feather,  and  keep 
the  mixture  out  of  the  reach  of  children. 

It  is  said  that  if  a  few  drops  of  oil  are  put  once  a  week  into  water- 
tanks  mosquitoes  will  be  prevented  from  breeding  in  them. 

Pitch-paper,  the  same  as  that  used  in  covering  roofs,  when  cut 
into  slips  and  placed  in  convenient  situations  under  carpets  and 
behind  sofas  and  chairs  in  a  room,  will  effectually  repel  the  moth- 
miller  from  depositing  its  eggs.  If  similar  strips  are  placed  inside 
the  backs  and  seats  of  parlor  suits,  they  will  render  the  furniture 
moth-proof 

It  is  a  good  plan  to  have  the  dining-room  and  kitchen  swept 
before  other  work  is  done ;  there  is  less  danger  of  spots  being  made 
on  carpet  or  floor.  Many  grease-spots  are  made  for  which  no  one  is 
accountable,  simply  by  crumbs  being  stepped  on  and  crushed.     If 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  567 

hot  grease  is  spilled  on  the  floor  or  carpet,  without  losing  a  minute 
pour  some  cold  water  on  it ;  it  can  then  be  scraped  off  with  a  knife 
and  the  traces  easily  removed  ;  but  if  left  to  penetrate  soft  wood  or 
to  spread  on  the  carpet  it  will  take  a  much  longer  time.  This  is  one 
of  many  cases  in  which  a  "stitch  in  time  saves  nine." 

Varnish  used  in  pottery  decoration  should  not  be  too  thin.  It 
will  give  better  satisfaction  if  it  is  applied  warm.  It  can  be  heated 
by  placing  the  jar  containing  it  into  a  larger  one  filled  with  boiling 
water.     By  no  means  set  it  on  the  fire. 

A  CHEAP  PAINT  is  made  for  brick  walls  by  simply  mixing  up  good 
hydraulic  cement  in  water,  and  applying  with  a  whitewash-brush. 
The  natural  tint  is  neutral  and  pleasing,  but  may  readily  be  varied- 
This  paint  cannot  be  washed  off  by  storms  nor  peeled  off  by  the  sun. 
.  The  LUSTRE  of  morocco  leather  is  restored  by  varnishing  with 
white  of  egg. 

When  putting  away  the  silver  tea  or  coffee-pot  which  is  not  used 
every  day,  lay  a  little  stick  across  the  top  under  the  cover ;  this  will 
allow  fresh  air  to  get  in,  and  will  prevent  mustiness ;  it  will  then  be 
ready  for  use  at  any  time,  after  having  first  been  thoroughly  rinsed 
with  boiling  water. 

All  sorts  of  vessels  and  utensils  may  be  purified  from  long- 
retained  smells  of  every  kind,  in  the  easiest  and  most  perfect  manner, 
by  rinsing  them  out  well  with  charcoal  powder,  after  the  grosser  im- 
purities have  been  scoured  off 

Old  paint  pails  and  cans  may  be  thoroughly  cleaned  with  strong, 
hot  lye. 

An  English  journal  gives  the  following  recipe  for  cleaning  plaster 
casts:  Make  a  thin  solution  of  starch,  and  with  a  brush  entirely  cover 
the  surface  of  the  plaster ;  leave  it  to  dry  for  about  three  days,  and 
then  peel  it  off  carefully. 

How  to  Treat  Old  Mirrors. — A  novel  way  of  treating  old  mir- 
rors whose  frames  are  either  ugly  or  have  ceased  to  be  ornamental, 
may  not  be  amiss.  Have  a  carpenter  make  a  plain  wooden  frame 
about  three   inches  wide  and   sloping  backward.     Stain  this  in  oil 


568  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

paints,  putting  them  on  thickly  and  motth'ng  them,  at  alternate  cor- 
ners having  the  colors  deeper  and  tending  toward  the  opposite  cor- 
ners in  lighter  tints.  Among  the  suitable  tints  are  deep  olive 
browns  or  greens  working  up  toward  white.  Then  decorate  boldly 
with  snow-balls  hanging  over  one  end,  the  foliage  running  lightly 
to  the  opposite  corner;  while  another  bunch  is  painted  below.  The 
decoration  should  always  be  irregular,  yet  perfectly  balanced. 

Cellars  thoroughly  treated  with  whitewash  made  yellow  with 
copperas  will  not  be  considered  desirable  habitations  for  rats  and 
mice, 

A  SOLUTION  OF  copperas  or  green  vitriol,  sprinkled  over  the  floor 
from  time  to  time,  makes  a  good  disinfectant. 

The  best  duster  with  which  to  clean  carved  furniture  is  a  new 
paint-brush ;  it  will  remove  all  the  dust  with  it. 

Cloths  to  hang  on  walls  behind  wash-stands,  are  now  embroi- 
dered with  colors  on  coarse  linen,  edged  with  a  coarse  lace  or 
fringed.  Chair  tidies,  toilet  table-covers  and  sideboard  cloth  are 
worked  the  same  way.  A  sideboard  cloth  is  made  of  coarse  white 
linen,  long  and  narrow,  with  ends  hanging  well  over  the  side.  Work 
only  the  ends.  Draw  out  the  threads  to  form  small  squares ;  above 
these  lightly  trace  a  braiding  pattern,  and  work  this  in  rather  large 
cross-stitch  with  coarse  red  flosette.  The  coarse  worsted  lace  dou- 
ble run  with  red ;  a  narrow  pattern  with  cross-stitch  worked  run 
along  the  whole  length  of  the  cloth. 

Putting  up  Curtains. — When  putting  up  curtains  which  are  to  be 
draped,  in  a  low  room,  put  the  cornice,  to  which  the  curtain  is  to  be 
fastened,  close  to  the  ceiling,  even  if  the  window  is  put  in  lower 
down,  as  it  gives  the  effect  of  greater  height  to  the  room.  The  cur- 
tains meeting  at  the  top  will  conceal  the  wall. 

How  TO  Color  a  Pine  Floor  where  Rugs  are  to  be  Used. — 
Buy  at  any  house-painter's  store  turpentine  and  linseed-oil  (not 
boiled).  Ask  them  to  put  a  little  Japanese  dryer  in  the  turpentine. 
Buy  either  burnt  sienna  or  Vandyke  brown,  or  both,  according  to 
the  color  of  the  rugs  and  the  tint  on  the  walls.     These  colors  come 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  569 

put  up  in  tin-cans,  smaller  but  otherwise  similar  to  tomato  or  fruit- 
cans.  After  your  floor  has  been  washed  thoroughly  clean,  is  free 
from  dust,  and  dry,  begin  by  opening  your  can  and  mixing,  in  an- 
other receptacle,  the  oil,  turpentine  and  paint.  Remember,  the  oil 
is  to  thin  your  paint,  the  turpentine  to  dry  it.  The  mixture  should 
be  so  thin  that  it  will  run  with  liquid  readiness.  Lay  it  on  with  a 
brush  as  thick  as  your  hand,  stroking  the  brush  the  way  of  the  grain 
of  the  wood.  Protect  your  hands  with  old  gloves,  and  go  over  the 
floor  with  a  rag.  In  fact  you  will  need  two  rags,  one  pretty  well 
charged  with  paint,  to  rub  in  every  crevice,  and  another  rag  to  rub 
ofi*  any  superfluous  paint.  Mind  your  stops,  or,  rather,  put  some 
mind  in  the  way  you  stop.  Do  not  stop  in  a  straight  line  across  the 
grain  of  the  wood,  but  carry  your  brush  irregularly  down,  taking  a 
hint  from  nature's  lines  in  the  wood  you  are  preserving  with  paint. 
By  mixing  the  burnt  sienna  and  Vandyke  brown,  you  will  secure  a 
rich  color  without  needing  to  use  the  paint  in  a  thick  form.  Your 
mixture  should  be  so  thin  that  the  grain  of  the  wood  will  show 
through.  If  you  have  too  much  turpentine,  the  paint  will  rub  off. 
If  you  have  too  little,  your  room  will  need  more  days  to  dry. 
Twice  as  much  oil  as  turpentine,  certainly.  Do  not  economize  the 
oil,  and  be  as  prodigal  in  rubbing  as  your  strength  will  permit.  To 
keep  the  gloss  on  a  stained  floor  wipe  up  the  floor  with  diluted  but- 
termilk or  sour  milk. 

How  TO  Use  Lamps. — To  have  your  light  safe,  clear  and  beautiful 
— in  the  first  place  buy  tested  kerosene  from  a  reliable  dealer,  and 
beware  of  the  cheap  oils  that  agents  peddle  around.  They  are  nearly 
all  benzine,  gasoline  or  naphtha,  and  are  dangerous  as  gunpowder. 
The  best  kerosene  is  clear  as  water,  and  will  not  flash  when  a  match 
is  applied  to  it.  Fill  and  trim  your  lamps  every  day.  When  a  half- 
empty  lamp  is  lighted,  the  gas  in  the  space  above  the  oil  expands 
with  the  heat  and  an  explosion  often  follows.  Wash  chimneys  and 
lamp  bowls  in  warm  soap-suds,  and  wipe  clear  with  old  fine  muslin 
cloths  (worn-out  pillow-cases  do  nicely).  Trim  all  the  cinders  off  the 
wick,  rounding  the  corners  a  little  with  an  old  pair  of  scissors  kept 


570  THE  hearthstone;   or,  life  at  home. 

for  that  purpose.     Have  a  place  for  cloths,  scissors,  etc.,  and  always 
put  them  there.     Your  wiping  cloths  must  be  perfectly  clean  and 
dry  if  you  want  your  chimneys  to  look  nice.     If  the  chimneys  are 
not  smoky  or  smeared,  simply  breathing  on  them  or  holding  them 
over  steam  and  polishing  is  sufficient.     Handle  carefully  by  top  or 
bottom,  so  that  there  will  be  no  finger  tracks.     Flat  chimneys  are 
best.     About  once  a  month,  or  whenever  sediment  begins  to  collect 
in  the  bowls,  empty  and  strain  the  oil,  wash  out  the  bowls  thoroughly 
with  hot  soap-suds,  wipe  clear  and  bright  with  a  long  strip  of  rag 
pushed  in  with  a  stick  ;  wash  the  burners  clean ;  if  burnt  black,  scour 
with  ashes ;  put  in  fresh  wicks ;  fill  with  clean  oil,  and  your  lamps 
will  be  a  joy  forever.     If  the  dirty  wicks  are  long  enough  to  save, 
wash,  rinse  and  dry  for  future  use.     Canton  flannel  folded  three  times 
width-ways,  and  stitched  on  either  edge  with   the  machine,  makes 
excellent  wicks,  the  cost  being  next  to  nothing.     If  your  oil-can  is 
empty,  and  you  live  far  from  town,  raise  the  oil  in  your  lamps  with 
water.     Of  course  you  have  to  keep  on  filling  with  water  till  the  oil 
is  all  gone.     Five  minutes'  work  on  a  lamp  every  day  will  make  it 
shining  clean,  then  put  it  out  of  the  way  of  dust  and  flies.     If  the 
busy  house-mother  cannot  find  the  time,  any  child  ten  years  old  can 
be  taught  to  take  care  of  the  lamps  neatly  and  carefully.     A  small 
lamp  is  better  than  a  candle  to  carry  around,  there  being  no  danger 
from  sparks,  or  curtains  and   clothing  coming   in   contact  with  the 
flame.     Where  there  is  a  family  of  small  children,  bracket  and  hang- 
ing lamps  are  safest.     Never  turn  the  lamp  down  and  leave  it  burn- 
ing.    It  will   fill   a  room  with  poisonous  gas  in   a  few  minutes.     It 
must  either  be  high  and  bright  or  extinguished.     Where  a  very  dim 
light  is  necessary,  put  a  tube  of  stiff  paper  over  the  lamp. 

To  prevent  lamp-chimneys  and  glassware  from  cracking  put  them 
into  a  pot  filled  with  cold  water,  to  which  some  common  table  salt 
has  been  added.  The  water  is  well  boiled  over  a  fire,  and  then 
allowed  to  cool  slowly. 

Common  Soda  is  the  best  thing  for  cleaning  tinware.  Dampen  a 
cloth  and  dip  in  soda,  and  rub  the  ware  briskly,  after  which  wipe  dry, 
and  it  will  look  equal  to  new. 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  t^^l 

Sugar-barrels  and  boxes  can  be  freed  from  ants  by  drawing  a 
chalk-mark  just  around  the  edge  of  the  top  of  them.  The  mark 
must  be  half  an  inch  wide  and  unbroken.  A  continuous  mark  will 
entirely  deter  them. 

To  prevent  silverware  from  tarnishing,  the  articles  should  be 
warmed,  and  then  painted  over  with  a  solution  of  collodion  in  alcohol, 
using  a  wide,  soft  brush  for  the  purpose. 

To  prevent  iron  from  rusting,  warm  it,  then  rub  white  wax  on  it. 
Put  it  again  to  the  fire,  until  the  wax  has  pervaded  the  entire  surface. 

If  STOVE-POLISH  is  mixed  with  very  strong  soap-suds,  the  lustre 
appears  immediately,  and  the  dust  of  the  polish  does  not  fly  around 
as  it  usually  does. 

To  Perfume  Note-paper,  etc. — Get  a  few  quires  of  blotting-paper, 
sprinkle  the  sheets  with  the  perfume  desired ;  then  put  the  blotting 
under  a  weight  until  it  becomes  dry.  When  dry,  put  note-paper, 
envelopes,  etc.,  between  the  sheets,  and  place  them  under  a  weight 
for  a  (cw  hours ;  remove  them,  and  they  will  be  found  perfumed. 
The  blotting  sheets  may  be  utilized  again,  and  can  be  made  to  retain 
their  perfume  for  a  long  time,  by  keeping  them  free  from  exposure  to 
air. 

How  TO  Drive  Nails. — It  seems  a  simple  and  easy  enough  matter 
to  drive  a  nail,  but  not  one  person  in  a  thousand  can  drive  one  with 
the  greatest  possible  effect  where  considerable  skill  and  judgment  are 
needed  to  this  end.  Most  mechanics  whose  peculiar  trade  requires 
the  frequent  exercise  of  this  operation,  neglect  to  study  the  subject 
properly,  and  drive  a  considerable  percentage  of  their  nails  in  an  in- 
efficient and  useless  manner.  And  amateurs,  whose  operations  are 
usually  upon  subjects  of  the  most  difficult  kind,  almost  invariably  fail, 
usually  doing  more  harm  than  good,  by  splitting  the  wood  and  ren- 
dering it  more  difficult  for  the  most  skilful  to  insert  a  reliable  nail. 
Examine  any  article  of  domestic  use  that  has  been  repaired  with  nails 
by  amateurs,  and  you  will  probably  find  that  a  large  majority  of  them 
do  more  harm  than  good.  Yet  a  little  judgment  and  thought  upon 
the  subject  would  direct  us  where  and  how  to  insert  a  nail  in  any 


573  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

difficult  case,  so  as  to  have  the  desired  effect.  In  nailing  boards  upon 
timbers,  the  simplest  and  plainest  of  all  the  various  phases  of  nail- 
driving,  at  least  one  in  ten  is  usually  lost  by  carelessness  on  the  part 
of  the  operator,  or  defect  in  the  nails  themselves.  And  in  the  more 
difficult  operations,  as  of  box-maker's  or  joiner's  work,  a  much  larger 
percentage  of  waste  is  suffered.  In  an  average  lot  of  window  frames, 
at  least  one  nail  in  five,  or  twenty  per  cent,  of  all,  will  be  found  to  be 
so  driven  as  to  be  useless.  Nails  ought  to  and  will  ultimately  be 
made  chisel-pointed.  They  penetrate  easier,  drive  straighter,  and 
hold  firmer  than  square-pointed  ones.  But  the  pointing  must  be 
done  perfectly ;  otherwise  it  induces  deflection  and  misdirection  in 
driving.  Nails  pointed  in  cutting  are  quite  certain  to  get  enough 
ruggedness  or  irregularity  at  the  extreme  point  to  effect  deflection, 
like  the  rudder  of  a  ship.  The  pointing,  to  have  the  requisite  accuracy, 
must  be  done  upon  the  filing  principle,  which  involves,  however,  too 
great  a  complication  of  machinery. 

Take  coach  varnish  and  renew  all  your  oil-cloths.  Wash  them 
clean,  wipe  dry,  and  apply  a  coat  of  varnish.  Be  careful  not  to  step 
on  them  until  they  are  dry.  If  this  is  done  once  a  year,  the  oil-cloths 
will  last  twice  as  long  as  they  will  without  it. 

Furniture  Polish  (i). — Make  a  mixture  of  three  parts  linseed-oil 
and  one  part  spirits  of  turpentine  ;  it  not  only  covers  the  disfigured  sur- 
face, but  restores  wood  to  its  original  color,  and  leaves  a  lustre  upon 
the  surface.  Put  on  with  a  woollen  cloth,  and  when  dry  rub  with 
woollen. 

Furniture  Polish  (2). — Beeswax,  half  a  pound ;  alkanet-root, 
quarter  of  an  ounce ;  melt  together  in  a  pipkin  until  the  former  is  well 
colored ;  then  add  linseed-oil  and  spirits  of  turpentine,  of  each  a 
quarter  of  a  gill ;  strain  through  a  piece  of  coarse  muslin. 

Another  Recipe. — Mix  half  a  pint  of  olive-oil  with  one  pound  of 
soft  soap.  Boil  them  well,  and  apply  the  mixture  to  your  oiled  fur- 
niture with  a  piece  of  cotton  or  woollen  cloth.  Polish  with  a  soft, 
dry  flannel. 

To  Clean  Silver. — Never  put  a  particle  of  soap  on  silverware,  if 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  573 

you  would  have  it  retain  its  lustre.  Soap-suds  make  it  look  like 
pewter.  Wet  a  flannel  cloth  in  kerosene,  dip  it  in  dry  whiting,  and 
rub  the  plated  ware.  Let  it  dry  on  it,  and  then  polish  it  with  a 
chamois-skin. 

Cleaning  Kettles. — Throw  a  shovelful  of  wood-ashes  into  the 
pan,  pot,  or  kettle  which  has  been  burned ;  fill  with  water ;  let  it  boil 
while  the  dishes  are  being  washed.  Then  wash  it  with  a  coarse 
cloth ;  this  plan  will  be  found  to  be  a  great  saving  of  hands,  spoons 
and  temper. 

A  Forgotten  Color. — The  simple  decoction  of  onion-peel  is  said 
to  produce  upon  glove-leather  an  orange-yellow  superior  in  lustre  to 
any  other.  It  is  also  said  to  be  suitable  for  mixing  with  light  bark 
shades,  especially  willow-bark,  and  as  a  yellow  for  modulating 
browns.  The  onion-dye  is  said  to  fix  itself  readily,  even  upon  leath- 
ers which  resist  colors,  and  colors  them  well  and  evenly. 

To  Mend  Broken  Ivory. — Moisten  thoroughly  a  small  quantity 
of  very  finely-powdered  good  quicklime  with  white  of  egg  to  form  a 
paste.  Use  at  once,  clamp  the  parts,  and  do  not  disturb  for  twenty- 
four  hours.     Do  not  use  an  excess  of  the  cement. 

The  Best  Ink. — A  commission  lately  appointed  by  the  Prussian 
government  to  investigate  the  best  class  of  inks  to  be  employed  for 
official  purposes,  state  that  aniline  inks  are  not  suitable,  because 
they  can  be  easily  washed  away,  especially  by  preparations  of  chlo- 
rine. Inks,  in  the  composition  of  which  alizarine  is  employed,  can  be 
obliterated  less  easily.  They  are  of  opinion  that  the  be.st  of  all  is 
the  old  description  of  ink  made  from  gall-nuts  and  salt  of  iron. 

Boiled  Starch  is  improved  by  the  addition  of  a  little  spermaceti, 
or  salt,  or  both,  or  gum-arabic  dissolved.  Bees-wax  and  salt  will 
make  flat-irons  as  smooth  as  glass;  tie  a  lump  of  wax  in  a  cloth,  and 
keep  it  for  that  purpose ;  when  the  irons  are  hot  rub  them  with  the 
wax-rag,  then  scour  with  a  paper  or  rag  sprinkled  with  salt.  Kero- 
sene will  soften  boots  or  shoes  hardened  by  water,  and  render  them 
as  pliable  as  when  new.     Kerosene  will  make  tin-kettles  as  bright 

as  new ;  saturate  a  woollen  rag,  and  rub  with  it ;  it  will  also  remove 
36 


574  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

stains  from  varnished  furniture.  If  a  shirt-bosom,  or  any  other  arti- 
cle, has  been  scorched  in  ironing,  lay  it  where  the  bright  sun  will  fall 
directly  on  it,  it  will  take  it  entirely  out. 

To  Clean  Coral. — Soak  it  in  soda  and  water  for  some  hours. 
Then  make  a  lather  of  soap,  and  with  a  soft  hair-brush  rub  the  coral 
lightly,  letting  the  brush  enter  all  the  interstices.  Pour  off  the  water 
and  replenish  it  with  clean  constantly,  and  then  let  the  coral  dry  in 
the  sun. 

Enamelling  on  Wood. — For  enamelling  on  wood  in  black  for 
parlor-organ  stops,  door-knobs  and  the  like,  take  of  seed-lac  and 
pale  resin,  each  two  ounces ;  alcohol,  one  pint.  Warm  the  wood  in 
an  oven,  apply  the  varnish  quickly  and  evenly ;  let  dry ;  give  another 
coat,  and  when  dry  rub  down  with  pumice-stone.  For  a  black  body, 
dissolve  four  ounces  shellac  in  one  pint  of  alcohol,  and  mix  up  to 
color  with  ivory-black  in  impalpable  powder ;  give  the  work  one  or 
more  flowing  coats  of  this,  and  heat  in  an  oven  (gradually)  to  about 
400°  Fahrenheit,  for  half  an  hour.  After  cooling  somewhat  give  a 
flowing  coat  of  pale  spirit-opal  varnish,  harden  again  in  the  oven,  and 
polish  with  felt  and  tripoli,  finishing  with  a  trace  of  oil.  For  white 
ground  mix  washed  flake  white  with  one-sixth  its  weight  of  starch, 
grind  very  finely,  and  temper  with  mastic  varnish.  Harden  by  heat,  and 
lay  on  five  coats  of  the  following:  Seed-lac,  two  ounces;  gum  anime, 
three ;  coarsely  powder,  dissolve  in  one  quart  of  alcohol,  and  strain. 
Harden  and  polish  as  before,  using  putty  powder. 

For  Cleaning  Silver  or  silver-plated  ware,  it  is  affirmed  that  a 
solution  of  hyposulphite  of  soda  is  one  of  the  simplest  and  best  ap-. 
plications.  The  solution  may  be  applied  with  a  rag  or  soft  brush. 
This  method  is  free  from  the  objection  attending  the  use  of  powders, 
as  there  is  no  filling  up  of  the  fine  lines  or  other  ornamental  work. 
But  most  housekeepers  think  that  there  is  nothing  better  to  clean 
silver  with  than  alcohol  and  ammonia ;  after  rubbing  with  this  take  a 
little  whiting  or  a  soft  cloth  and  pol'ish  in  this  way;  even  frosted 
silver,  which  is  so  difficult  to  clean,  may  be  easily  made  clear  and 
bright. 


MICELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  5/5 

How  TO  Mend  China. — One  of  the  best  receipts  for  mending  china 
is  the  following,  and  it  really  is  admirable :  Take  a  very  thick  solu- 
tion of  gum-arabic  in  water,  and  stir  it  into  plaster  of  Paris  until  the 
mixture  becomes  a  viscous  paste.  Apply  it  with  a  brush  to  the 
fractured  edges,  and  stick  them  together.  In  three  days  the  article 
cannot  be  broken  in  the  same  place.  The  whiteness  of  the  cement 
renders  it  doubly  valuable. 

To  Set  a  Color. — One  tablespoonful  of  ox-gall  in  a  pint  of  water 
is  sufficient.     It  is  immaterial  whether  cotton,  silk,  or  woollen  fabric. 

To  Cleanse  Barrels. — Merely  scrubbing  out  a  barrel  with  ashes 
is  not  sufficient  to  sweeten  it.  The  lye  must  penetrate  the  wood. 
Throw  in  a  peck  of  ashes,  then  fill  up  with  clean  water ;  let  it  stand  a 
couple  of  days ;  rinse  and  fill  up  with  clean  water  a  couple  of  times 
to  soak  out  the  lye.  Jars  and  jugs  can  be  sweetened  by  the  same 
process. 

Recipe  for  Making  Candles. — Very  hard  and  durable  candles 
are  made  in  this  way :  Melt  together  ten  ounces  of  mutton  tallow,  a 
quarter  of  an  ounce  of  camphor,  four  ounces  of  beeswax,  and  two 
ounces  of  alum.  Candles  made  of  these  materials  burn  with  a  strong, 
clear  light. 

Ink  for  Zinc  Labels. — Verdigris,  two  drachms ;  ammonia,  two 
drachms  ;  soft  water,  four  ounces ;  lampblack,  one  drachm.  Mix  in 
a  mortar,  adding  the  water  by  a  little  at  a  time  ;  keep  in  a  glass- 
stoppered  bottle.  Shake  before  using.  Write  on  the  zinc  with  a 
quill  pen,  and  when  dry  it  is  ready  for  use. 

To  Black  a  Brick  Hearth. — Mix  some  black-lead  with  soft  soap 
and  a  little  water  and  boil  it ;  then  lay  it  on  with  a  brush.  Or  mix 
the  lead  with  water  only. 

To  Cut  Glass  Jars. — Fill  the  jar  with  lard-oil  to  where  you  want 
to  cut  the  jar;  then  heat  an  iron-rod  or  bar  to  red-heat;  immerse  in 
the  oil ;  the  unequal  expansion  will  crack  the  jar  all  round  at  the 
surface  of  the  oil,  and  you  can  lift  off  the  top  part. 

To  Clean  Furniture. — One  quart  of  cold  drawn  linseed-oil,  half 
a  pint  of  gin,  or  spirits  of  wine,  half  a  pint  of  vinegar,  two  ounces  of 


57^  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

butter  of  antimony,  half  a  pint  of  turpentine.  This  mixture  requires 
to  be  well  shaken  before  it  is  used.  A  little  of  it  is  then  to  be  poured 
upon  a  rubber,  which  must  be  well  applied  to  the  surface  of  the  fur- 
niture. Several  applications  will  be  necessary  for  new  furniture,  or 
for  such  as  has  previously  been  French  polished  or  rubbed  with 
beeswax. 

The  leaves  of  the  common  walnut-tree,  placed  over  doors,  win- 
dows, mantels,  or  in  wreaths  or  bunches  about  the  house,  will  drive 
flies  away. 

Kettles  which  come  with  a  new  stove  can  be  cleaned  by  boiling 
potato  peelings  in  them  over  a  slow  fire. 

Porcelain  kettles  that  have  become  brown  can  be  rendered 
nearly  as  white  as  when  new  by  boiling  potatoes  in  them. 

Small  quantities  of  ice  may  be  preserved  in  summer  by  making  a 
bag  large  enough  to  hold  the  ice ;  then  make  another  much  larger 
bag,  and  fill  the  space  between  with  sawdust. 

If  by  chance  the  wash-boiler  should  spring  a  leak  when  filled  with 
clothes  over  a  brisk  fire,  carefully  press  the  clothes  away  from  the 
side  of  the  leak  and  sift  a  small  teaspoonful  of  Indian  meal  over  the 
water ;  the  leak  will  close  immediately. 

Stone-jars,  which  have  become  offensive  and  unfit  for  use,  may  be 
rendered  perfectly  sweet  by  packing  them  full  of  earth  and  letting 
them  stand  two  or  three  weeks. 

Good  housekeepers  never  permit  soup  to  cool  in  the  iron  pot  in 
which  it  is  cooked. 

Hay-water  is  a  great  sweetener  of  tin,  wooden  and  iron  ware.  A 
handful  of  hay  boiled  in  new  kettles  of  iron  or  tin  removes  all  dis- 
agreeable taste.  ; 

Water  slightly  impregnated  with  petroleum,  applied  to  plants  or 
animals  infected  with  insects,  will  destroy  the  latter  at  once. 

A  PINT  OF  mustard-seed  put  in  a  barrel  of  cider  will  preserve  it 
sweet  for  several  months. 

Castor-oil  is  an  excellent  thing  to  soften  leather. 

A  small  piece  of  paper  or  linen,  moistened  with  spirits  of  turpen- 


MISCELLANEOUS    HOUSEHOLD    RECIPES.  577 

tine,  and  put  into  a  bureau  or  wardrobe  for  a  single  day,  Ivvo  or  three 
times  a  year,  is  a  sufificient  preservation  against  moths. 

Keep  soft  soap  three  months  before  using. 

Oilcloths  and  straw  matting  can  be  kept  bright  by  washing  twice 
during  the  summer  with  salt  and  water — say  about  a  pint  of  salt  dis- 
solved in  about  a  pailful  of  warm,  soft  water — drying  the  matting 
quickly  with  a  soft  cloth.     The  salt  will  prevent  it  turning  yellow. 

To  Preserve  a  Cracked  Picture. — An  application  which  is  said 
to  answer  the  purpose  of  preserving  a  scaling  or  cracked  picture  very 
well,  is  made  of  a  mixture  of  equal  parts  of  linseed-oil  and  methylated 
chloroform,  which  is  to  be  poured  over  the  painting  if  the  colors  are 
too  brittle  to  bear  the  friction  of  a  soft  brush.  After  remaining  on 
the  surface  of  the  painting  for  a  day  or  two,  the  excess  of  oil  may  be 
removed  by  means  of  a  piece  of  cotton  wool,  or  a  soft  brush,  a  fresh 
portion  of  the  preservative^  applied,  and  the  excess  removed  as  before. 
This  process  must  be  repeated  from  time  to  time  until  the  colors  are 
firmly  fixed,  when  the  painting  will  bear  friction,  and  may  be  cleaned 
or  varnished.  It  is  recommended,  however,  to  remove  as  much  of 
the  dirt  from  the  picture  as  possible  (if  there  be  any)  by  careful  wash- 
ing with  soft  water,  previously  to  making  the  above  application.  The 
mixture  will  not  restore  the  cracks  in  a  painting,  but  simply  fixes  the 
colors,  and  by  rendering  them  very  elastic,  prevents  the  cracking 
from  progressing  further.  A  mixture  of  one  part  of  methylated 
chloroform  and  two  of  linseed  oil  is  used  for  reviving  the  colors  of 
paintings.  After  washing,  a  small  portion  is  rubbed  over  the  picture 
with  cotton  wool,  and  on  the  following  day  the  painting  is  wiped 
over  with  a  soft  silk  handkerchief  Oil  and  chloroform,  when  used 
in  the  proportions  given,  possess  the  property — so  it  is  claimed — of 
restoring  the  faded  colors  of  paintings,  and  of  developing  colors, 
which,  by  reason  of  age,  have  perished  to  the  eye. 

Cool  rain-water  and  soda  will  remove  machine  grease  from 
washable  goods.  Lamp-wick  dipped  in  hot  vinegar  before  using  is 
said  to  prevent  offensive  smell  from  lamps.  Tortoise-shell  and  horn 
combs  are  preserved  from  cracking  by  being  occasionally  rubbed  with 


57o  THE    HEARTHSTONE  ;    OR,    LIFE    AT    HOME, 

oil.  To  remove  oil  spots  from  matting,  counterpanes,  etc.,  wet  with 
alcohol,  rub  with  hard  soap,  then  wash  with  cold  water. 

Ink-stains. — There  are  various  methods  for  removing  ink-stains 
from  white  fabrics,  but  most  of  them  attack  the  material  itself.  With 
colored  goods  the  difficulty  is  increased,  for  that  which  will  remove 
the  ink  will  destroy  the  color.  A  European  paper  now  states  that 
if  the  stain  is  dipped  into  hot  melted  suet  or  tallow  and  washed  when 
cold  in  hot  water  it  will  remove  the  ink  together  with  the  fat. 

The  Parisian  method  of  cleaning  black  silk  is  to  brush  and  wipe  it 
thoroughly,  lay  it  on  a  flat  table  with  the  side  up  which  is  intended 
to  show,  and  sponge  with  hot  coffee  strained  through  muslin.  Allow 
it  to  become  partially  dry,  then  iron. 

To  Renovate  Black  Cashmere. — Take  about  one-half  teacup  of 
spirits  of  ammonia  to  one  quart  soft  water;  then  with  a  soft  sponge 
rub  the  pieces  till  thoroughly  wet ;  then  roll  tightly ;  when  the  pieces 
are  all  sponged,  iron  immediately ;  put  the  right  side  of  the  cashmere 
next  to  the  flannel ;  use  as  hot  an  iron  as  possible  and  iron  till  per- 
fectly dry.  Then  use  a  soft  brush  to  remove  flannel  lint  from  the 
right  side. 

Leghorn  hats  are  whitened  (otherwise  than  with  the  fumes  of  sul- 
phur) as  follows  :  Immerse  in  a  strong  aqueous  solution  of  sulphite  of 
soda  or  bleaching  powder  (chloride  of  lime),  and  then  in  dilute  sul- 
phuric acid  (acid  i,  water  5).  The  bleaching-powder  treatment  re- 
quires much  subsequent  washing,  or  the  use  of  an  antichlore  dip, 
hyposulphite  of  soda  dissolved  in  20  parts  of  water. 

To  remove  iron-rust  from  linen,  apply  lemon-juice  and  salt;  expose 
to  the  sun.  Make  two  applications  if  necessary.  Then  when  per- 
fectly dry,  rinse  in  clear  cold  water.  Lemon-juice  can  only  be  used 
on  white  goods,  as  it  takes  out  printed  colors  as  well  as  stains. 


SOCI/L  FORMS. 

CARDS  OF  COMPLIMENT."^ 

Mrs.  Ellen  Gorham  presents  her  complinients  to  Miss  Wickham, 
and  requests  the  honor  of  her  company  to  a  tea  party,  on  Tuesday 


evening. 


2IO  Willoughby  street. 
Monday  noon. 

Miss  Wickham  presents  her  respects  to  Mrs.  Ellen  Gorham,  and 
accepts  her  kind  invitation  with  pleasure. 
90  Clermont  street. 
Monday  noon. 

Miss  Wickham  presents  her  respects  to  Mrs.  Ellen  Gorham,  and 
regrets  that  a  pre-engagement  prevents  her  acceptance  of  her  polite 
invitation. 


Miss  Robinson's  regards  to  Mrs.  Butler,  and  will  be  obliged  by 
her  company  to  dinner  on  Wednesday  next,  at  four  o'clock. 

Mrs.  Butler's  compliments  to  Miss  Robinson,  and  is  sorry  that 
a  pre-engagement  for  Wednesday  next  compels  her  to  decline  her 
very  polite  invitation. 

Mrs.  Butler  presents  her  respectful  compliments  to  Miss  Robin- 
son, and  will  do  herself  the  honor  of  waiting  upon  her  at  the  appointed 
time, 

*  Complimentary  Cards  must  always  have  the  addros,  etc.,  at  the  bottom,  simii.ir 
to  the  first  two. 

(573) 


580  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Sharpe  presents  his  respects  to  Mr.  Fletcher,  and 
shall  feel  greatly  obliged  if  Mr.  F.  will  take  his  duty  at  St.  Charles' 
on  Sunday  next,  business  of  importance  calling  Mr.  H.  from  town. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Fletcher's  compliments  to  Mr.  Sharpe,  and  feels 
happy  in  having  the  power  to  oblige  him  on  Sunday  next. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Fletcher  is  extremely  sorry  it  is  not  in  his  power 
to  oblige  Mr.  Sharpe,  being  obliged  to  officiate  at  St.  Augustine's  on 
Sunday  morning  next. 


Mr.   Williams  presents  his  compliments  to  Mrs.  Johnson,  and 
begs  she  will  accept  the  basket  of  fruit  sent  herewith. 

Mrs.  Johnson  returns  her  best  respects  to  Mr.  Wilhams,  and  is 
greatly  indebted  to  him  for  his  obliging  request. 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  present  their  respects  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  K.,  and 
shall  expect  thepleasure  of  their  company  to  meet  a  dinner  party  at 
3  o'clock  on  Monday  afternoon  next. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  K.  are  truly  obliged  by  the  polite  invitation  given 
them  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.,  and  will  do  themselves  the  honor  of  attend- 
ing upon  them  at  the  appointed  time. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  K.  present  their  respectful  compliments  to  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  J.,  and  are  exceedingly  sorry  that  the  severe  indisposition 
of  Mr.  K.  will  deprive  them  of  the  pleasure  of  accepting  their  friendly 
invitation. 


Mr.  B.  will  be  greatly  obliged  if  Mr.  H.  will  favor  him  with  a 
call  this  evening,  at  eight  o'clock,  having  some  business  of  particular 
importance  to  communicate.     The  favor  o^  an  answer  is  requested. 

Mr.  H.  has  to  acknowledge  the  honor  of  Mr.  B.'s  note,  and  will 
have  the  pleasure  of  waiting  upon  him  at  the  appointed  time. 


SOCIAL    FORMS.  58 1 

Mr.  H.  is  truly  sorry  that  he  is  unavoidably  prevented  from  wait- 
ing upon  Mr.  B.  at  the  hour  of  eight  this  evening,  but  will,  if  agreeable, 
do  himself  that  honor  to-morrow  morning,  at  eleven  o'clock. 


FORM  OF  AN  INVITATION  TO  A  WEDDING. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Garland 

request  your  presence 

at  the  marriage  of  their  daughter, 

Miss  Ellen  Agnes 

TO 

Mr.  Tristram  Trevanion  Wyndham, 

ON  Tuesday  morning,  September  seventh,  1873, 

at  eleven  o'clock. 

St.  James'  Cathedral, 

London. 


FORM  OF  INVITATION  TO   THE  RECEPTION. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Garland 

AT  home 

Tuesday  morning,  September  seventh,  1873, 

from   half-past   eleven   until   four   o'clock.. 

59  Garden  Terrace, 


ADMISSION-CARD  FORMULA. 

St.  James'  Cathedral, 
ceremony  at  eleven  o'clock. 


582  THE  hearthstone;  or,  life  at  home. 

RECEPTION  CARDS. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Tristram  Trevanion  Wyndham 

AT  home, 
Tuesday  evenings  in  November, 
from  seven  to  ten  o'clock. 
59  Columbia  Heights. 


ANNOUNCEMENT  OF  MARRIAGE. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Garland 

announce  the  marriage  of  their  daughter, 

Miss  Ellen  Agnes, 

and 

Mr.  Tristram  Trevanion  Wyndham, 

Tuesday,  September  seventh,  1873. 

No.  59  Garden  Terrace. 


MARRIAGE  ANNIVERSARIES. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Barnett 

request  the  pleasure  of  your  presence 

on  Monday  evening,  April  ninth,  at  eight  o'clock.^ 

TO  celebrate  the 

twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  their  marriage. 

No.  25  Sterling  Place. 

No  gifts  received. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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JAN  1 0  19G3 


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d 


MAIN  LOAN  Ucb 

OCT  1.  G  19B4 

A.M. 

7l3l9'10'llil-^  "  ""'I 

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I^g?. '  'MWJL-:.' 


'BE  IJ, EVER  SO  HUMBLE 
IJHERE.IS  NO  PLAGE   / 
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